From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2003 - 10:36:51 CST
In <yly93tzcg3.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
>Terje Bless <link@pobox.com> writes:
>> Would I then be correct in quoting you as saying that 15% of the Netnews
>> community should be ignored in favour of compatibility with email?
>That 15% is not using UTF-8.
>Both solutions ignore (read: do not standardize the current practices of)
>that 15%. No one is proposing making that 15% happy, including you. So
>this is a straw man.
The gut feeling of many people is that maybe 5% can be persuaded to switch
to UTF-8, leaving 10% in their own sandbox (aka "cooperating subnet").
However, one needs to look at this on two fronts:
A. newsgroup-names
B. subjects, comments, phrases
Currently, considering usage of 8-bit, A has 0% usage. B has 15%.
We can classify A further:
A0. No I18N newsgroup-names
A1. Punycode newsgroup-names
A2. UTF-8 newsgroup-names
What can we do for those 15% as regards B?
B0. Nothing (insist on 7bits everywhere). 15% still unhappy.
B1. Bless UTF-8. Maybe reduces the 15% to 10%.
B2. Bless any 8-bit, by introducina a charset tag to cover all headers.
Might reduce the 15% to zero.
My problem with B2 is that it would encourage the Chinese to experiment
with newsgroup-names in GB18030 (call it A3), which would ruin any chance
of enforcing A2. So I would stick at B1 and leave the Chinese in their
sandbox. But I might give them some unofficial encouragement to move by
suggesting tests for valid UTF-8 as a way to rejoin the rest of the world.
I think it is common ground that if A2 is not adopted, then B2 and B3 are
dead. So that leaves under discussion:
A0+B0
A1+B0
A2+B0
A2+B1
Is there anyone who is arguing for more (e.g. B2 or even A2)?
Clearly, many on this list are still arguing for A2+B1, in spite of
potential IESG difficulties. Personally, I am concentrating my efforts on
A2+B0, though I would still like to go further.
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5