[Comment on WS-I18N WD]

Hello,

The WS-I18N draft specifically defines locale and timezone as element 
information items.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-ws-i18n-20080415/#sec-i18n

Is it possible to consider defining several other commonly used elements 
as well?

Here is a list of items that we think are common:

  1. Locale (already defined)
  2. Timezone (already defined)
  3. Language (used when UI language is different from the language 
deduced from the UI locale. e.g. "de" for German language, "fr-CH" for 
Switzerland/French locale)
  4. Collation (based on the IANA collation registry)
  5. Charset (based on the IANA character set registry; for limited use, 
generally discouraged)
  6. Date/Time Formats (based on LDML syntax)
  7. Number Format (based on LDML syntax)
  8. Currency Format (based on LDML syntax)
  9. Calendar (based on LDML calendar type?)

WS-I18N's defining more elements would enhance interoperability 
significantly. For example, they could include the followings, then it 
would be easier to coordinate the services and produce the desired 
application behavior.

i18n:international/i18n:language?
i18n:international/i18n:preferences/iana:collation?
i18n:international/i18n:preferences/iana:charset?
i18n:international/i18n:preferences/ldml:dateFormat[@type="short"]?
<snip/>

It would be desirable for service implementors to use standard items so 
that the implementations will be compatible with others.

Regards,
-Dan Chiba
Oracle Globalization Technology