CAW N 14
A proposal on the Internationalization
related activities of JTC 1
1997-12-10
Akio Kido
(Personal
contribution)
Proposal
-
The JTC 1/WG5 should not be merged with other
groups, such as JTC 1/SC2 or JTC 1/SC22/WG20.
-
Merge SC22/WG11 and WG20 then having a new
WG that is responsible to establish cross language standards in the manner
being language independent. The WG15 (POSIX) also may be able to be merged
into the new WG, too. The development project of IS 15435 (Internationalization
API) should be executed by the WG. The WG11's expertise on the language
independent specifications will contribute to the development of the IS
15435.
-
Maintain SC2 as an individual TD for Coding.
The TD should have the responsibility not only for coding of character
but also for other data coding. However, the codling technologies that
have already assigned to other TC or SC, such as picture coding, are not
necessary to be transferred to the TD consists of SC2.
-
Transfer development project of IS 14651 International
String Ordering and IS 14652 Specification method of cultural convention
set from SC22/WG20 to the TD.
-
Establish a new rapporture group under the
JTC 1, and assign two tasks to the group. The first task is to work as
the single focal point in JTC 1 that has JTC 1 wide responsibility for
"Internationalization". The scope should not be restricted in the scope
of SC22, then provides internal services to TD/SC/WGs outside of SC22 as
well. The services would include; review and comments to CDs developed
by a SC/WG in the JTC1 from the viewpoint of internationalization, and
provide consulting service to the SC/WG, per request. The second task is
to perform two years study on further standardization works for culture
adaptation. The resulting report of the study should answer to the question
what kinds of standards or guidance are required to ensure culture adaptability
of information technologies? The study should be performed in the manner
being application (e.g., CALS and E-Commerce) oriented, not application
platform oriented, and focus on the issues beyond the functionality of
programming languages and operating systems. Perhaps, the issues may exist
about complex cultural conventions such as the difference of business process,
business customs, and regulations.
Rationale for the project transfer
of IS 14651 and IS 14652
Since the IS 14651 is the international ordering
standard based on the ISO/IEC 10646, it has tight relation with the development/amendment
activity of the ISO/IEC 10646. In other words, synchronized with the amendments
of ISO/IEC 10646, the IS 14651 also need to be amended to keep the consistency
between those standards. Therefore, the developing activity of IS 14651
should be preformed under the TD who is responsible for the ISO/IEC 10646.
The project transfer of the IS 14651 from the SC22/WG20 to the TD(SC2)
will contribute to ensure consistency and synchronization between ISO/IEC
10646 and IS 14651.
The IS 14652 (Specification method of cultural
convention set) does not have direct relation with the ISO/IEC 10646, but
the IS 14651 rely on the specification method of collation definition table
to the IS 14652. In other words, without having the IS 14652, the IS 14651
can not enter to the FCD/DIS ballot. Therefore, it is recommendable to
execute the development projects of IS 14652 in the same body who is responsible
to the IS 14651.
Background and rationale for
establishing new rapporture group
Last seven years, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22/WG20
has been working as a single focal point of Internationalization in JTC
1, and has been producing Internationalization related Technical Reports
and Standards for Programming Languages. As the result, the concept of
Internationalization becomes popular in the SC22, and each WG under the
SC22, such as COBOL, can develop its standard in the manner being fully
internationalized. However, the scope of the WG was actually limited within
the scope of the SC22, thus the WG20 did not provide any services to WGs
outside of the SC22.
If we consider about culture adaptability
of information technologies now being focused in the industry, such as
CALS and worldwide E-Commerce, the internationalization work in the area
of the SC22 might not be good enough. On the top of internationalization
functionality of SC22 standards, business applications and/or worldwide
network applications need to provide functionality that is adapted to the
business customs or regulations of the target country/region. The functionality
is beyond the scope of traditional locale provided by non-Object-Oriented
programming languages and POSIX. The traditional locale only contains information
related with coded character sets and quite simple culture sensitive presentation
of a data. Because of the nature of application platform, SC22 standard
can only provide internationalization functionality that rely on static
descriptions of culture convention set (locale) stored in the platform,
but not rely on the rule-sets that are subject to be changed dynamically.
Only application components, such as business objects, developed by using
SC22 standards can provide the support to the dynamic culture convention
set, such as accounting rule and tax system. Object-Oriented technologies
that support new concept of locale introduced by Java, with class loading
mechanism will enable application to perform dynamic binding of the culture
sensitive business objects at execution time. Note that the Java's "locale"
is just name of the target culture and does not have direct relation with
any description of the cultural convention set stored in the local system.
Such dynamic binding mechanism of culture sensitive application components
may be called as application locale in order to distinguish it from traditional
platform locale.
In order to ensure the culture adaptability
of information technology at the level of application, the following works
may be required:
-
Identify cultural differences beyond the functionality
of application platforms, but need to be addressed to ensure culture adaptability
of applications. The difference of business customs, business processes,
regulations, import/export tax, and currency exchange rates might be candidates
of those cultural differences.
-
Establish a standardized method to support
Multiple culture adaptability. Current POSIX locale model is just for localizing
a culture independent system to a language and cultural environment. It
is assumed that its culture related information (locale) is stored in the
local system statically. In order to support inter culture communication,
a dynamic access mechanism to the culture related information located at
remote system would be required. Otherwise, an application can not be adapted
to multiple cultures of expected users, i.e., local user and remote user.
For example, there are two users assumed for a commerce application, i.e.,
seller and buyer, and the seller may be live in a different culture/country
of the buyer. In such case, the commerce application need to check regulations
of both countries to ensure if a goods can be shipped from sellers country
to buyers', and present its price in the both currencies considering the
import tax of the buyers country and exchange rate of those currencies.
The information of the import/export regulation may be provided by governments
and the information of the exchange rate may be provided by an international
bank, but never exist in the local system.
-
Establish universal data representation (coding)
of data other than coded character sets. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC2/WG2 did make
a good job to establish the universal character set (ISO/IEC 10646) that
every local coded character set can be mapped to. Then by using the universal
coded character set as information exchange code, or as processing code,
information integrity can be guaranteed across different scripts/coded
character set environments. Such universal data representation may also
be required out side of coded character set area. For example, universal
data representation method of measurement systems would be required. Without
having any universal data representation of "length", perhaps meter system
might be good enough, a user in the yard system can not communicate with
the user who is in another fanny measurement system. In order to guarantee
the data integrity between different systems, a data represented by a system
need to be converted to the culture independent universal system in the
local side, then transferred to the remote system. The data also should
be converted again in the remote system from the universal system to the
another local convention. Thus the data can be presented in the meaningful
manner to both side of users. This concept should be applied to more complex
measurement systems such as size of shoes.