RE: Internationalization Requirements

A new version of the spec should be coming out after Munich that will
provide significantly better support for compound documents. As for
variants, the problem there is that we are forcing our way into server
configuration and I do not believe that this is an appropriate area for
us to stick our noses. Still, I think it would be great to see some
proposals on how we could implement full variant support, we could then
go to the server folk with it and see what they think.

		Yaron

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Judith Slein [SMTP:slein@wrc.xerox.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, August 07, 1997 6:48 AM
> To:	ejw@ics.uci.edu
> Cc:	'Dylan Barrell'; 'Roy T. Fielding'; Martin J. Duerst; Yaron
> Goland; 'w3c-dist-auth@w3.org'
> Subject:	RE: Internationalization Requirements 
> 
> One of the things I've been doing this past week is assessing where
> WEBDAV
> stands today against Xerox needs.  The two areas that stand out as the
> most
> serious shortfalls for Xerox are the lack of support for variants and
> the
> lack of support for compound documents.  Our interest in variants is
> more in
> the area of document formats than language variants, though language
> is
> important, too.
> 
> I'll see what I can do about coming up with some concrete suggestions
> about
> for adding these capabilities to WEBDAV.
> 
> That having been said, I would not want to do anything that would
> delay the
> publication of a WEBDAV proposed standard.
> 
> --Judy
> 
> At 03:59 PM 8/6/97 PDT, Jim Whitehead wrote:
> >Dylan,
> >
> >My sense of the working group is that most members do not want to
> address 
> >the issue of providing authoring support for language variants in the
> first 
> >rev. of the WebDAV specification.  I have received this impression at
> both 
> >the Palo Alto meeting, and also at the Orem working group meeting.
> Given 
> >this, if you wish to prosecute your position on language variant
> authoring 
> >support, I recommend that you produce some concrete recommendations
> for a) 
> >requirements, and b) protocol support required to implement this 
> >capability.  The best avenue for publishing such a recommendation
> would be 
> >an Internet Draft.  I can point you at instructions for creating I-Ds
> if 
> >you are unfamiliar with them.
> >
> >Without such a concrete recommendation, it will be difficult for you
> to 
> >convince the working group to support such capability, especially
> since I 
> >believe there currently exists rough consensus *not* to support
> authoring 
> >of language variants.  You are also free to demonstrate to me that
> language 
> >variant authoring support is indeed desired by more than just two
> (vocal) 
> >members of the mailing list, but to date I have seen no such
> evidence.
> >
> >- Jim
> >
> >On Wednesday, August 06, 1997 12:52 AM, Dylan Barrell 
> >[SMTP:dbarrell@bb.opentext.com] wrote:
> >> I disagree with the statement that we do the world a disservice by 
> >implementing a solution for language variants only. I think that this
> would 
> >be doing those authors out there (most large coporations web authors)
> who 
> >have to develop and maintain multilingual web sites a great service.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >> Dylan
> >>
> >> ----------
> >> From: 	Yaron Goland[SMTP:yarong@microsoft.com]
> >> Sent: 	Montag, 4. August 1997 14:40
> >> To: 	'Dylan Barrell'; 'Roy T. Fielding'; Martin J. Duerst
> >> Cc: 	w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> >> Subject: 	RE: Internationalization Requirements
> >>
> >> It is not enough to say "Here are the different languages this
> document
> >> is available in." You must also tie that into all the other axis's
> of
> >> variation including CPU needed to execute, software required to
> read,
> >> format, encoding, etc. We do the world a disservice if we try to
> solve
> >> language variation independently of general variation.
> >>
> >> In addition, given the complexity of the issues and the varying
> >> requirements from supporting variation on a single axis to
> supporting
> >> variation on multiple independent axis's, I do not believe we are
> ready
> >> to come out with a coherent standard.
> >>
> >> Variation is something the net does not do particular well. I think
> the
> >> HTTP standard's attempts to deal with the problem have demonstrated
> >> that. I can only speak from my personal experience trying to
> implement
> >> HTTP on IE 4.0, a browser which is internationalized into some
> large
> >> number of languages, but we were forced to cut support for the Vary
> >> header and quality numbers from the get go. I think this problem
> needs
> >> to age more, better consensus as to what the key features are need
> to be
> >> developed, and then we can discuss standardization.
> >>
> >> Standards never lead, they only follow.
> >>
> >> 		Yaron
> >>
> >> > -----Original Message-----
> >> > From:	Dylan Barrell [SMTP:dbarrell@bb.opentext.com]
> >> > Sent:	Monday, August 04, 1997 1:04 AM
> >> > To:	'Roy T. Fielding'; Martin J. Duerst; Yaron Goland
> >> > Cc:	Dylan Barrell; w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> >> > Subject:	RE: Internationalization Requirements
> >> >
> >> > I agree that it would be too difficult to handle variants in
> general
> >> > however language variants are a special case which would be easy
> to
> >> > handle. There is always a one-to-one relationship between any
> given
> >> > resource and its corresponding translation to another given
> language
> >> > and the server is currently required to understand this
> relationship
> >> > in order to handle the accept-language header correctly.
> >> >
> >> > Cheers
> >> > Dylan
> >> >
> >> > ----------
> >> > From: 	Yaron Goland[SMTP:yarong@microsoft.com]
> >> > Sent: 	Mittwoch, 30. Juli 1997 21:17
> >> > To: 	'Roy T. Fielding'; Martin J. Duerst
> >> > Cc: 	Dylan Barrell; w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> >> > Subject: 	RE: Internationalization Requirements
> >> >
> >> > Um.. not that I'm aware. We decided very early on to not deal
> with
> >> > variants. It brought up too many ugly issues. In fact, the
> problem
> >> > most
> >> > likely would require the introduction of a Turing complete
> scripting
> >> > language. Even TCN is not powerful enough to capture all the
> possible
> >> > issues.
> >> >
> >> > Either way it was felt that we got a big enough win just solving
> the
> >> > non-variant scenarios that it was worth achieving that goal
> rather
> >> > than
> >> > being hopelessly lost in an unending morass of negotiation
> >> > specification
> >> > issues.
> >> >
> >> > 			Yaron
> >> >
> >> > > -----Original Message-----
> >> > > From:	Roy T. Fielding [SMTP:fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu]
> >> > > Sent:	Saturday, July 26, 1997 9:21 PM
> >> > > To:	Martin J. Duerst
> >> > > Cc:	Dylan Barrell; w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> >> > > Subject:	Re: Internationalization Requirements
> >> > >
> >> > > >> Correct me if I'm wrong and show me where I can read about
> it,
> >> > > >> but the server *doesn't* give you the variants list and
> certainly
> >> > > >> doesn't map them to the language and this is exactly what
> I'm
> >> > > >> complaining about.
> >> > > >
> >> > > >You may be right. I had a look at the HTTP 1.1 spec, and I
> only
> >> > > >found 10.4.7  406 Not Acceptable. The behaviour described
> there
> >> > > >is not very deterministic. Maybe Roy can help out?
> >> > >
> >> > > That is why we have a WebDAV working group.  Both the 300 and
> 406
> >> > > response bodies were left unspecified because the intention was
> that
> >> > > they be specified by a group that actually had time to study
> the
> >> > > problem in detail and come up with a [hopefully] better
> solution
> >> > > than some off-the-cuff invention of mine.  It was one of the
> WebDAV
> >> > > to-do items, last time I checked.
> >> > >
> >> > > ....Roy
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >> 
> >
> >
> >
> Name:			Judith A. Slein
> E-Mail:			slein@wrc.xerox.com
> Internal Phone:  	8*222-5169
> External Phone:		(716) 422-5169
> Fax:			(716) 265-7133
> MailStop:		105-50C

Received on Thursday, 7 August 1997 15:32:55 UTC