From keld@dkuug.dk Wed Jun 17 18:40:58 1992 Received: by dkuug.dk (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA01851; Wed, 17 Jun 92 18:40:58 +0200 Date: Wed, 17 Jun 92 18:40:58 +0200 From: Keld J|rn Simonsen Message-Id: <9206171640.AA01851@dkuug.dk> To: sc22wg15rin@dkuug.dk Subject: Draft RIN minutes Cc: sc22wg15@dkuug.dk X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 WG15RIN N072 ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 Rapporteur Group on Internationalization Meeting Minutes May 3 and 4, 1992 Hamilton, New Zealand (Unapproved Draft, May 5, 1992) ============================================ Sunday ============================================ 1.1 Keld selected as Chair, Ralph Barker as Secretary, Patric Dempster, Keith Hopper Drafting Committee 1.2 Intros - Keld, Ralph, Patric, Keith present on Sunday at 10 others delayed French and Japanese delegates expected at around noon Additional members present during Afternoon Session: Nobuo Saito, Japanese rapporteur Roger Hicks, NZ rapporteur Dann Paton, Canadian observer 1.3 Documents for distribution: RIN# Temp Nos HRT-nnn N055 HRT-001 - Nordic and Baltic POSIX Locales and Character Sets source: DS N056 HRT-002 - Response to SC22/WG15 N229R source: SC22/WG20 N088 N057 HRT-003 - Extended Identifiers source: SC22/WG20 N085 N058 HRT-004 - WG20 N079(R) NP on Cultural Elements and Registry source SC22/WG20 N059 HRT-005 - Support for Symbolic Character Names source: DS, WG14 N197 N060 HRT-006 - Nordic Cultural Requirements on Information Technology source: INSTA (Inter-Nordic Standards Assn) N48 HRT-007 - Letter to ISO/IEC re 9945-1 1990 source: Keld N061 HRT-008 - X/Open Internationalization cooperation, letter source: Keld N062 HRT-009 - Expert contrib, re PAX and 10646 source: CPWG (Canadian POSIX WG) N063 HRT-010 - Draft Canadian Profile source: SCC CPWG (Standards Council of Canada, Canadian POSIX Working Group) N064 HRT-011 - Layered Architectures for Internationalized Products source: HP expert contribution via SC22/WG20 N065 HRT-012 - Internationalization Functional Overview source: SC22/WG20 N068 N066 HRT-013 - WG20 N057, Framework of Internationalization source: SC22/WG20 N067 HRT-014 - Japanese National Profile for POSIX Version 2.0 source: Japanese POSIX WG N068 HRT-015 - Japanese Locale Example in Japanese source: Japanese POSIX WG N069 HRT-016 - Procedure for Registration of National Profile for POSIX source: Japanese POSIX WG Added Monday: N070 HRT-017 - Revised RIN Terms of Reference and Program of Work N071 HRT-018 - Draft Report to JTC1 on i18n work within WG15 ==================================================================== Sidelight: in NZ, official communication may be in either English or Maori; NZ had hoped to use 8859 to cover both, but 8859 does not include the necessary macrons; 10646 does cover Maori requirements ==================================================================== 1.4 Agenda approved with addition of 4.8 thru 4.14 1.5 Minutes of last meeting approved without modification 2. Action Item Reports RIN Action Items: 9111-1 - closed 9111-2 - open 9111-3 - closed 9111-4 - closed 9111-5 - closed 9111-6 - closed - no discussion of ballot resolution within RIN - confine to plenary, respond to plenary requests if needed 9111-7 - closed 9111-8 - open pending discussion of 4.9 on agenda 9111-9 - closed by agenda item 4.1 9111-10 - closed 9111-11 - closed; related request to circulate RIN mailing list for possible revision/update 9111-12 - closed; Keld reviewed material in archive and found no IEEE material was included 9111-13 - closed 9111-14 - closed by DS ballot response; may wish to revisit/reopen 9111-15 - closed by HRT-008 9111-16 - closed by WG20 actions, see HRT-014 thru 016 9111-17 - closed; Canadian recommendation was not to use "replace-after" pending further investigation of impact, and potential adverse affect on portability and interoperability; seems to have substantial risks associated with the ability to have a chain of "replace-afters" 9111-18 - closed; see HRT-009 9111-19 - closed; Canada prefers that strxfrm functionality should be externally exposed to enhance portability, strxfrm is highly C-Language related; 9111-20 - closed in plenary mtg in Stokholm 9111-21 - open; Review of WG15 Action Items affecting RIN: ==================================================================== 3.0 Balloting activities - conclusion was to drop -1 and -2 balloting issues from regular RIN agenda, and to respond only to requests on RIN from the WG15 plenary ==================================================================== 4. New Business 4.0 Report on RIN activities for submittal to WG15 plenary (Barker and Saito to prepare for review during Monday RIN meeting) Outline: A. Formation B. Scope C. i18n work within POSIX 1. Done prior to formation of RIN 2. Directly under RIN sponsorship 3. Done Elsewhere, recognised by RIN 4.1 National profiles and locales A. Keld would like to do a RIN informational paper for submittal to SGFS Discussion: Prior discussions concluded that profiles and locale concepts should be kept separate, and that SGFS should be made aware that the use of the term "National Profile" is a generalized case of a profile that is culturally related- and while conceptually consistent with the "collection of stadnards" view of profiles, they should still be differentiated from the "collection of standards" meaning of the term. Likewise, while locales and National Profiles relate to similar topics, a "locale" should be viewed as a cultural element specification, while a National Profile describes parameters of standards generally applicable within a particular country. ACTION ITEM - Japan and U.S. to prepare paper on the issues of National Profiles and profiles in the RGCPA sense for distribution prior to the next meeting. ============================================ Monday ============================================ Additional members present: Dave Cannon, U.K. observer (new U.K. rapporteur not yet appointed) Jean-Michel Cornu, French rapporteur Mike Day, N.Z. observer Discussion of HRT-016 - Procedure for registration of National Profile for POSIX: Japanese body may prefer to structure this as a Technical Report, rather than a multi-part IS, as proposed within HRT-016 ACTION ITEM: Japan to refine work on the report regarding proposed procedures/guidelines for National Profiles, and develop a proposed draft NP for the related Technical Report and registration procedures for presentation at the October 1992 meeting. ACTION ITEM: Canada, Japan, France and the U.S. to work together in developing coordinated definitions of "profile", "National Profile", etc. for review at the October 1992 meeting. ACTION ITEM: Japan and the U.S. to develop a paper describing the proposed coordinated definitions of "profile", "National Profile" etc., and the associated issues, for review at the October 1992 meeting. HRT-001, Nordic and Baltic POSIX Locales and Character Sets, has been approved by INSTA, and has been used as the basis of development of other national locales, Estonia and Lithuania. The document is also being used within EurOpen members. The document includes, among other things, a definition of the "replace-after" keyword proposed by Denmark, along with locale definitions using this functionality. Questions raised by N.Z. : 1. use of keywords in sections other than those mentioned is not clear (e.g. is it legal to use a keyword associated with one section of the locale in another section, as well?); 2. definition of use of comment char in a position other than the first character position on a line is not clear, and should be clarified; 3. the grammar contained in this document, which is based on that contained in 1003.2, may need to be tightened to avoid potential abiguities. The document also contains a method of describing character sets which results in a substantially smaller definition of the character set. Discussion: while the compressed size of the character set definition may be highly useful, the brevity may result in some level of ambiguity. Denmark recommended that the document be used as RIN's guideline; U.S. and N.Z. objected, absent review and comment from experts within their countries. The document, in a revised form, is to be the draft WG20 standard for locale definition, registration, etc. ACTION ITEM: All member countries to circulate HRT-001 and HRT-006 within their countries for review and comment, with the objective of being able to bring a national position on its use (in a revised form) as the official RIN guideline to the October 1992 meeting. ACTION ITEM: Keld to draft cover letter for use in circulating HRT-001 and HRT-006, post same to the RIN mailing list for comments back within 2 weeks. A final version of the cover letter will then be posted by Keld for use by RIN member countries. ACTION ITEM: N.Z. to review the English language description and prepare a formal grammar and syntax proposal for consideration at the October 1992 meeting. 4.1e - Naming Scheme discussion (see RIN N044) Request from Canada that N044 be modified to indicate that the second section 3. specify that comments "must" be in English, and "may optionally" be in one or more other natural languages as well. (ISO 9000, for example, does NOT specify the language in which registrations are permissable, thus most are written only in the natural language of the submitter, making life difficult for implementers who do not speak ALL languages) 4.1f - Japanese National Profile Version 2.0 (HRT-014) Certain elements of the document are being refined and will likely be submitted for review and comment at the October 1992 meeting. Various requirements within the Japanese environment should be included in 9945-2b. Although discussions are ongoing within Japan as to certain elements of the draft, the Japanese rapporteur indicated that inclusion of Version 2.0 within the RIN collection of sample National Profiles was OK. Comments: Section 2.1, Page 6 - a locale name conforming to naming conventions outlined in N044 and work coming out of UniForum and X/Open wg should be included. It was suggested that charmaps should be containable within a single file, and have a descriptive name which would be a POSIX portable file name, and have a suffix of ".cm" to indicate the nature of its content being a charmap ^ ^ Work in Denmark and Canada has established a collating priority of letter accent case special characters Japan would like to use an algorithmic approach: ASCII < JIS X0201 (RH) < JIS X0208 < JIS X 0212 rather than a fully enumerated collating sequence specification. This approach, however, might limit interoperability, as different systems may not provide precisely the same result. 4.1g - Canadian National locale (HRT-010) In developing the Canadian National Locale, Canada is finding that things which they previously thought were obvious, aren't. (e.g. there are differences of opinion as to what is the first day of the week). The attempt is to arrive at the smallest number of locales needed to handle English, French and bi-lingual requirements. The present Canadian draft is felt to be too preliminary by the Canadian body to be included within the RIN collection. ============================================ 4.2 Revised Questionaire - WG20 thinks the document is "very interesting" Resolution to request WG15 distribute to all member countries requesting their completion of the questionaire within 6 months ============================================ 4.3 i18n Background paper - Keld's suggestion that Donn's paper be included in material being sent to JTC1; the group agreed ============================================ 4.4 Invariant ISO 646 support - DS recommends consideration for inclusion in 9945-2b See HRT-009, discussion to occur on Monday ============================================ 4.5 DS Extended Itentifiers - discussion to take place in plenary ============================================ 4.6 2nd CD of 9945-2 - discussion to take place in plenary ============================================ 4.7 Review of RIN Program of Work See revised Terms of Reference and Program of work, associated resolution requesting approval of WG15 ============================================ 4.8 10646 Issues (HRT-009) Discussion of archive issues dealing with file names which use 8 bit or larger chars, previously encapsulated in discussions of "pax -e" issues. Canada feels that the ability to read and write 10646 archives would require changes to .1 rather than just in .2 ============================================ 4.9 Locale Registry (including charmap) (HRT-001, 004) HRT-004 is a draft NP for SC22/WG20 to establish a standard for locale specification and registration of "cultural elements" ("cultural elements" being the current WG20 terminology for "locale") Proposal within WG20 is to have an IS completed by October 1994 - a highly aggresive schedule in recognition of the urgent need for a POSIX locale registry by WG20. WG20 did not want to deal with the issues of charmap registry at the present time, due to various historical character set issues, including SC2's not having yet completed its work on character set naming. Discussion: Comment that WG20 might take either of two positions - 1) do generic specs for cultural elements, leaving specific environment definitions to affected WG's, or 2) do both generic and particular specifications. WG20 feels that it is appropriate for them to do both generic specifications for cultural elements and specifications for particular environments, including POSIX. See RIN resolution to WG15 requesting NP be modified to include registration of both locales and charmaps. ============================================ 4.10 Symbolic Character Names DS is proposing a set of functions to translate between symbolic character names and wide chars. Discussion suggested that DS submit the proposal directly to the P1003.1 for consideration in a future extension of the standard. No RIN action required. ============================================ 4.11 i18n Requirements and Reference Model Issues Discussion postponed to email and/or October 1992 meeting; more documents expected from WG20 ============================================ 4.12 Methods of motivating email discussions Discussion of methods of encouraging greater levels of email discussion among RIN members and participation of experts within national bodies. ACTION ITEM - All members to send the meeting schedules for their organizations to Ralph Barker for compilation into a composite calendar. This calendar will be used by Keld in an effort to coordinate mailings of RIN documents (more frequent RIN mailings needed) so that RIN members can get greater national body input prior to RIN meetings. Discussion of RIN operational procedures. Outline of recommendation: 1. Continue to limit RIN meeting to two days, attempting to do more work between meetings via email 2. Attempt to coordinate more frequent mailings with meetings of national bodies; this would likely result in at least 4 mailings per year, potentially more. 3. Generally restrict discussion within RIN meeting to noticed agenda items and associated documents which need to be distributed in advance (via email and "official" copies via paper mail) 4. New documents and issues that arise after last paper mailing may be added to agenda, with a brief introduction/presentation by national body submitting document; if time allows, allow more in-depth discussion after priority agenda items have been completed. ============================================ 4.13 strxfrm issues, discussion of LIS impact, Canadian recommendations ============================================ 4.14 Discussion of currency specifications; national vs. international (need for both differences in currency symbol and positioning with respect to amount - need to do both within a single locale) ACTION ITEM - Keld to ask Hal to suggest whoever made the LC_MONETARY request to submit a more detailed description of the requirements, and, potentially, proposed modifications to 1003.2 that could be considered for inclusion within "-2b". ============================================ 4.15 Discussion of conflict in date format specification X/Open requested the Danish national body to bring forward a request to change the current %C "century" specifier to %Q to avoid conflict with X/Open's use of %C within XPG. RIN conclusion was that no immediate RIN action was to be taken, but that the development body working group might give consideration of the change in the normal course of events for possible inclusion with "-2b". ==================================================================== 5.0 Liaison Reports ============================================ 5.1 1003.x status report ============================================ 5.2 Liaison reports WG20, WG14, WG21 ============================================ 5.3 UniForum - X/Open report ACTION ITEM Summary: RIN9205-001 - Japan and U.S. to prepare paper on the issues of National Profiles and profiles in the RGCPA sense for distribution prior to the next meeting. RIN9205-002 - Japan to refine work on the report regarding proposed procedures/guidelines for National Profiles, and develop a proposed draft NP for the related Technical Report and registration procedures for presentation at the October 1992 meeting. RIN9205-003 - Canada, Japan, France and the U.S. to work together in developing coordinated definitions of "profile", "National Profile", etc. for review at the October 1992 meeting. RIN9205-004 - Japan and the U.S. to develop a paper describing the proposed coordinated definitions of "profile", "National Profile" etc., and the associated issues, for review at the October 1992 meeting. RIN9205-005 - All member countries to circulate HRT-001 and HRT-006 within their countries for review and comment, with the objective of being able to bring a national position on its use (in a revised form) as the official RIN guideline to the October 1992 meeting. RIN9205-006 - Keld to draft cover letter for use in circulating HRT-001 and HRT-006, post same to the RIN mailing list for comments back within 2 weeks. A final version of the cover letter will then be posted by Keld for use by RIN member countries. RIN9205-007 - N.Z. to review the English language description and prepare a formal grammar and syntax proposal for consideration at the October 1992 meeting. RIN9205-008 - All members to send the meeting schedules for their organizations to Ralph Barker for compilation into a composite calendar. This calendar will be used by Keld in an effort to coordinate mailings of RIN documents (more frequent RIN mailings needed) so that RIN members can get greater national body input prior to RIN meetings. RIN9205-009 - Keld to ask Hal to suggest whoever made the LC_MONETARY request to submit a more detailed description of the requirements, and, potentially, proposed modifications to 1003.2 that could be considered for inclusion within "-2b".