- From: Tom Hume <Tom.Hume@futureplatforms.com>
- Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:11:03 +0100
- To: Jo Rabin <jrabin@mtld.mobi>
- Cc: public-bpwg-ct <public-bpwg-ct@w3.org>
I'm not sure how reasonable it is to forbid transcoding of character sets other than UTF-8/ASCII either. On 10 Sep 2008, at 11:02, Jo Rabin wrote: > I think this topic is a good example of something we have tripped > across quite often, which is that we are not trying to specify an > ideal content transformation proxy, we're trying to impose > restrictions of what such a proxy should or should not (must and > must not) do. > > So, obviously, to my mind, a proxy that doesn't map character > encodings when necessary in both the request and the response will > be a useless proxy for some set of devices and servers. But that not > in scope for us to comment about. > > What's in scope is to speak about character encoding mappings that > might be carried out that would do harm, probably, though then > again, does this imply that we should have a clause that says "don't > map character encodings to something the device does not support". > Seems exceptionally banal and how many other statements of that form > would we need to include for the sake of consistency? > > In LC-2023 [1] the specific proposal is: > > [1] http://www.w3.org/2006/02/lc-comments-tracker/37584/WD-ct-guidelines-20080801/2023?cid=2023 > > A simple way that could go some way towards alleviating this risk > would be to forbid any transformation if the server announces (either > via the HTTP field Content-type: charset=..., the XML declaration, or > a meta-tag) an encoding different from ASCII or perhaps UTF-8. > > I don't think I understand the reasoning behind this. Though the > idea of fiddling with Shift-JIS would fill me with dread and I guess > that there is a perception that most mobile devices, even today, > have better support for ISO 8859 than they do UTF-8. I'm not sure > what truth there is to that perception, or even what "better" might > mean. > > To sum up, my feeling is that it would be useful to understand the > benefits of what is proposed in LC-2023. Absent that understanding, > my inclination is to "remain silent" on this topic like we decided > before. > > Jo > On 10/09/2008 00:23, Tom Hume wrote: >> LC-2023 discusses problems around transformation of content across >> character sets: mappings may not exist, documents may contain >> multiple mappings, external entities may use alternative mappings >> and some proprietary ones are well established (e.g. pictograms on >> I-Mode). >> There have been posts on this list referring to character set >> translation being a potentially useful service which a proxy might >> provide, from mobile device towards origin server [1]. I've not >> seen any discussion on character set translation carried out in the >> other direction. >> I'm wondering how likely it is that a device will request content >> from a server via a transforming proxy which the device is capable >> of parsing itself, and the proxy transform this content in such a >> way that it is not suitable for display on the device? This sounds >> like a Bad Thing :( >> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-bpwg-ct/2008Mar/0021.html >> -- >> Future Platforms Ltd >> e: Tom.Hume@futureplatforms.com >> t: +44 (0) 1273 819038 >> m: +44 (0) 7971 781422 >> company: www.futureplatforms.com >> personal: tomhume.org > -- Future Platforms Ltd e: Tom.Hume@futureplatforms.com t: +44 (0) 1273 819038 m: +44 (0) 7971 781422 company: www.futureplatforms.com personal: tomhume.org
Received on Sunday, 21 September 2008 22:11:41 UTC