ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 N607

	Title: Report on CEN/TC304 activities

	Source: WG15 representative to CEN/TC304, Keld Simonsen

	Date: 1995-10-22

	Action: for WG15 Orlando meeting, 1995-10


	CEN/TC304 met in Stockholm 1995-04, The next meeting in in
	Barcelona Nov/Dec 1995.  There were no specific requests from
	TC304 to WG15 at this time.

	TC304 has produced a registration standard ENV 12005, that
	includes registration of POSIX locales and charmaps conforming
	to ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993.  The ENV 12005 is under publication.

	TC304 has been working on subsets of IS 10646, but the formal
	vote ballot fell, and it will be tried to convert enough votes
	in the November/December meeting to get it passed.

	TC304 is working on a European sorting specification on a subset
	of IS 10646, character set conversion standards, collection of
	POSIX locales not sponsored by CEN and JTC1 member bodies, a
	report on the use of characters in European indiginous
	languages, and profiles of character sets.

	TC304 has a project team that has produced a report on user
	requirements in the field of character set technology, with a
	number of proposals for further standardization in the field.
	This also includes proposals for standardization in the POSIX
	area, possibly in cooperation with WG15.  The SC22 plenary in
	Annapolis, 1995-09, requested WG15 to cooperate with CEN/TC304
	on a plan for the production of the standards.

	The proposals possibly involving WG15 are given in the report in
	section 6.5.5 pages 61-64.  I will give a description of the
	possible involvement from WG15 of the proposed projects relevant
	to WG15.  This is done on a request from the WG15 convener, and
	after consulting the IEEE 1003.2 SUWG group.

	L/11113b Message interface with localisers.
	This work should be done in ISO, and there is an API standard
	proposed in WG20 on this.  To avoid overlap, the initial work
	should be done in WG20.

	L/1312 Update POSIX to cover more cultural conventions.
	This should be done in WG15/IEEE.  Some work is already underway
	in P1003.2b, but more is required.  As i18n expertise in i18n is
	limited in IEEE, the further enhancements to POSIX standards
	should be carried out in WG15 in its RIN group.

	L/132 Formal Specification Techniques for cultural data (in
	      addition to POSIX).
	This is the IS 14652 project from WG20.  WG15 should liaise
	strongly to ensure POSIX alignment.

	L/2111b Guidelines on national specifications of cultural
		conventions.
	This is almost the same as the proposed project of WG15 on
	guidelines for POSIX national profiles and locales.  The WG15
	project should be enhanced to cover all of what is proposed by
	CEN, and the work should be carried out in WG15 RIN in close
	cooperation with WG20 and CEN/TC304.

	L/212 International cultural registry
	This should be accomplished by transforming the newly approved
	CEN ENV 12005 standard into an ISO/IEC standard, by Vienna
	parallel voting or NB fasttracking.

	L/31 Update POSIX to include locale default rules
	This should be undertaken by WG15 possibly in cooperation with
	IEEE.

	C/3131 Guide on conversion between UCS coding forms.
	WG20 is going to work on APIs on coded character sets and iconv
	like APIs and utilities should be specified there.

	C/332 Support for locale registry in POSIX operating systems
	This should be done in the current .2b amendment.

	The most urgent work is L/2111b, L/212 and C/332.  Based on my
	experience with work in this area, I would advise that the
	limited personal resources be gathered in one place, so that
	long liaison dialogues could be avoided.  As the work is
	international in nature, and a number of relevant persons are
	not active in regional activities such as CEN or IEEE, my
	recommendation would be to do the work either in WG15 or WG20.