SC22/WG20
N1029
US National Body Contribution to the Meeting on Cooperation and Coordination on Cross-Cultural and Linguistic Matters—2003-06-02/03
Resolution 22 in JTC1 N6927 includes the following:
JTC1
recommends this ad hoc meeting address the following agenda items:
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· Coordination of standards development for
projects relating to cross-cultural and linguistic matters affecting SCs and
ways of cooperation;<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· Recommendations to JTC1 on the appropriate SC or
joint SC work for development of related standards;<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· Consideration of how to address these issues on
an on-going basis (e.g., special working group, co-located meetings, joint
working group) and ensure continuity by periodic review.<!--[endif]-->
The
US National Body appreciates this opportunity in JTC1 to cooperate with other
national bodies to develop a cross-SC process that results in useful world-wide
standards. Well defined, appropriate and timely standards that address cultural
and linguistic issues are crucial, and benefit the diverse cultures of this
world. The
This submission addresses each of the agenda items in the above resolution.
I. Recommendations to JTC1 on the appropriate SC or joint SC work for development of related standards.
SC2/WG2
WG2 is a large and active working group. Its scope includes the standardization
of graphic character sets and their characteristics, associated control
functions, their coded representation for information interchange and code
extension techniques.
The last two meetings
(May 2002 and December 2002) were well attended, with 37 and 33 delegates participating
respectively from a number of countries, including Republic of Korea, Japan,
USA, Ireland, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, China, Singapore, Canada,
and Finland.
WG2 has two very active
projects (parts of the same standard), both of which will be merged into a
single project this year. The projects with SC2/WG2 will continue for some
time, as writing systems of the world (both living and historical) continue to
be added to 10646.
Number |
Description |
Editor |
|
|
|
02.18.01 |
ISO/IEC 10646-1:
Information Technology – Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) –
Part 1: Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane |
|
|
|
|
02.18.02 |
ISO/IEC 10646-2:
Information Technology – Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) –
Part 2: Supplemental Planes |
|
|
|
|
Completed or near-completed projects within SC2/WG2 include:
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> · ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000 (SC2N3411) –published <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> · ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000/Amd 1 ( SC2N3588 ) –published <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· ISO/IEC 10646-1/Amd 2 –FDAM ballot stage<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · ISO/IEC 10646-2: 2001 –published <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · ISO/IEC 10646-2/Amd 1 –FDAM ballot stage<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · ISO/IEC
TR 15285: 1998 (Character Glyph Model) –published
<!--[endif]-->
While the project list
is quite short, the amount of work still outstanding is considerable. As the
Universal Character Set, IS 10646 is the fundamental standard for
well-internationalized software. There is great interest in the UCS outside the
internationalization IT community as well; IS 10646 is an often-cited standard,
as noted in WG20N1022 . (This document
also shows that other SC2 standards such as 8859, 2022, and 646 also are highly
cited on the web.)
Given the high interest
in developing the UCS, high participation levels and successful productivity of
this SC, SC2/WG2 should continue working as it has in the past.
SC2/WG3
The SC2/WG3 focus is on 7 and 8-bit codes and their extensions. The final two
items in the program of work are almost finished:
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · Revision of ISO/IEC 8859-7 (Greek) which is ready for submittal to SC2 for further processing (FDIS).<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · ISO
2375, a registry of coded character sets maintained by IPSJ/ITSCJ in Japan
(FDIS).
<!--[endif]-->
SC22/WG20
WG20 presently has about 5 permanent participants –
WG20’s
project list is not very long, and the list of active projects is even shorter.
Number |
Description |
Editor(s) |
|
|
|
22.13 |
Amendment of TR 10176 Guidelines for the
preparation of programming language standards |
Akio Kido Makoto Noda |
|
|
|
22.13.1 |
Amendment #1 to TR
10176 |
|
22.13.2 completed |
TR 10176 third edition |
|
|
|
|
22.13.3 |
TR 10176 fourth
edition |
Marc Küster |
|
|
|
22.30.01 |
TR 11017: Framework
for internationalization |
T.K. Sato |
|
|
|
22.30.02.01 no output |
Functionality of the
internationalization of applications (umbrella project) |
Keld Simonsen |
|
|
|
22.30.02.02 |
ISO/IEC 14651:
International string ordering |
Alain LaBonté |
|
|
|
22.30.02.02.1 |
ISO/IEC 14651:
International string ordering, Amendment #1 for 10646-2 |
Alain LaBonté |
|
|
|
22.30.02.02.2 |
ISO/IEC 14651: International string ordering, Amendment #2 |
Alain LaBonté |
|
|
|
22.30.02.03 |
ISO/IEC TR 14652: Specification method for cultural conventions |
Keld Simonsen |
|
|
|
22.15435 |
ISO/IEC 15435:
Internationalization API |
Keld Simonsen |
|
|
|
22.15897 |
ISO/IEC 15897: Procedures for registration of cultural elements |
Keld Simonsen |
From this project list one can see that the work of WG20 is almost completed.
Most key deliverables are finished. At this time, only a few projects remain,
most in the final stages. The following two projects are quickly nearing
completion.
1.Publication of TR 14652 – Specification method for cultural
conventions
This
project is completed but not yet published. There are publication issues; ITTF
does not like references to specific countries’ objections to the technical
content of the TR, as approved by the National Bodies in the DTR ballot.
ITTF
has made a recommendation for how to resolve this situation ( SC22/WG20 N1016) and WG20 has accepted the
proposal. TR 14652 will be published soon.
2.Enhancement of the registration process in IS 15897 – Registration
of cultural elements
The
registration process of 15897 is being aligned with the registration process in
ISO 2375 (which governs the registration of character sets). If the editor
cooperates, the standard should be ready for FCD ballot in April 2003.
If
the registration standard is approved, it is the job of the registration
authority to perform their job according to the standard.
Once these two projects
are completed (and this should happen in the very near future), there is only
one project left in SC22/WG20 to address:
3.Continuing maintenance of IS 14651—International String Ordering
This
remaining project will require on-going updates, since all characters in
ISO/IEC 10646 must be accounted for in IS 14651.
The
US National Body’s recommendation for the continued work in IS 14651 is to
assign the maintenance of the “Common Template Table” to SC2/WG2. This
recommendation also reflects the opinion of numerous National Bodies and the
former convenor of SC22/WG20, Arnold Winkler.
Moving IS 14651 to
SC2/WG2 and finishing the two outstanding projects listed above will close out
the work in SC22/WG20.
II.Coordination of
standards development for projects relating to cross-cultural and linguistic
matters affecting SCs and ways of cooperation.
The major coordination
project we see necessary is the outstanding work in IS 14651.We recommend that
the maintenance of the table that drives culturally correct ordering from 14651
be assigned to SC2/WG2 for the following reasons:
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> 1. The participants in SC2/WG2 have a good working
relationship with many experts (in both technical and linguistic specialties)
working in multiple standards organizations and consortia. This results in good
cross-pollination between standards, and areas of key cultural and linguistic
importance are addressed across the IT industry in an appropriate, technically
sound and timely manner. Successful collaborative efforts include:
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· the internationalized domain names specification
(with the IETF)
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· the character-glyph model (with the W3C)
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· the implementation of 10646 in various
programming and scripting languages (with ECMA)
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· the synchronization of the Unicode Standard and
IS 10646 (with the Unicode Consortium)
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· input to CDSG (Cultural Diversity Steering
Group) to help prepare a report on Internationalization technology addressing
European localization requirements (with CEN)
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> 2. The participants in SC2/WG2 are willing and able
to take on the outstanding work in 14651 and continue to develop it, following
the precedent set by the contributors in WG20.
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> 3. Other advantages to moving IS 14651 to SC2/WG2
include:
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · The
experts in character encoding are often also the experts in culturally correct
ordering.
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · All
sorting experts currently participating in WG20 are also in SC2/WG2 (e.g.,
Alain LaBonté, Keld Simonsen, Professor Kyongsok Kim,
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · Since
SC2/WG2 already determines the character repertoire for IS 10646, the
maintenance of the 14651 table is only a small additional task for the
experts,The ordering table could be potentially approved faster by the process
in SC2/WG2 than by the current mechanism within WG20 which meets only once
every 9 months, often out of sync with WG2.
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · Moving
IS 14651 out from under the SC22 umbrella frees up the subcommittee to focus
their resources on their specialty: programming languages.However, SC2/WG2
would continue to work with SC22 in any areas that required expert input
concerning the interaction of character sets and programming languages. (In the
future, there will be a need for the SC22 WGs to cooperate with organizations
such as the IETF, the Unicode Consortium and the W3C to address issues around
identifiers. This cooperation will be especially important as the various SC22
standards all move towards using IS 10646 as their reference encoding.)
<!--[endif]-->
III. Consideration
of how to address these issues on an on-going basis (e.g., special working
group, co-located meetings, joint working group) and ensure continuity by
periodic review.
SCs have a number of
options for addressing the on-going work within the area of cultural and
linguistic technologies. Two suggestions follow.
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> 1. Meetings
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · Numerous suggestions have been made for the co-location of this joint-SC meeting (e.g., with the JTC1 Plenary, with one of the various SC meetings). Given however the state of the world economy, the need for face-to-face meetings is dubious.Many committees successfully and economically accomplish work via teleconferences, e-mail and other collaborative technologies, meeting only when absolutely necessary. <!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · Participation by e-mail or telephone also allows for greater participation by those stakeholders who may not have the financial means to travel to and physically attend a meeting.If the true purpose of this work is to address world-wide technology matters, we should allow as much accessibility by as many cultural and linguistic interests as possible, and not just those who have the financial means to participate.Keeping costs down via teleconferencing and e-mail enables greater participation by a wider and more diverse range of people.<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportLists]--> · However, if face-to-face meetings are indeed necessary, we believe they should be co-located with the meetings where the greatest number of (and the most active) stakeholders participate: SC2/WG2, for reasons discussed earlier.<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> 2. Meeting agendas
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· Meetings (in person or otherwise) should only be
held when there is a well-defined need to meet.A complete and accurate meeting
agenda is the best means to determine the need for a meeting, and meetings
should only be held when there is an actual agenda, and written contributions.
There should be some type of taxonomy to determine what qualifies as an agenda
item, e.g.:
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> a. Work on an existing project
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> b. A complete and well-defined NP proposal
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]--> c. Transfer of work from one organization to
another
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->
· If these clearly-outlined criteria are not met,
or there are no written contributions for agenda items, a definitive agenda is
not established and the meeting should not take place.
<!--[endif]-->
The US National Body is
pleased to have the opportunity to propose the recommendations in this
contribution.We hope to participate at the meeting in