RE: Proposed note about C064 and C065

I think there is a misunderstanding going on here wrt the meaning of the text 'an obligation to track the very latest update version of Unicode'.

My understanding is that this has nothing to do with whether or not you cite a minor version, but rather whether or not you have to change your specification every time the Unicode spec is updated. From his response, I think that this is what François intended also (see "there is no obligation to *track* the latest version, as in updating a spec whenever Unicode issues a new update.")

Perhaps we can resolve this with some additional text, as follows:

==============
NOTE : C064 and C065 are meant to avoid specifications referring to obsolete and potentially unavailable versions of the standards.  It should *not* be construed as an obligation to update specifications every time the Unicode standard is updated, especially when a specification has no need for this level of details and all is that is desired is a generic reference.  Specification editors may consult http://www.unicode.org/versions/latest for the latest version of Unicode and search the ISO Catalogue from http://www.iso.ch/ for the latest version and published amendments of ISO/IEC 10646.
================

RI

============
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
 
http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/
http://www.w3.org/International/
http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishida/
 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-i18n-core-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-i18n-core-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of François Yergeau
> Sent: 20 February 2007 14:28
> To: Martin Duerst
> Cc: public-i18n-core@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Proposed note about C064 and C065
> 
> 
> Martin Duerst a écrit :
> > I'm not very happy about this. I think the intent of the WG at the 
> > time of authoring the document was clearly different from 
> the text below.
> 
> My recollection is different, but of course that was a while 
> ago and I might be wrong.
> 
> > In my understanding, the WG felt that it was important that 
> all specs 
> > would use the best available (i.e. newest) references to 
> the Unicode 
> > Standard, even if this meant the use of a minor version and longer 
> > text in the reference section.
> > 
> > I think there were various reasons for this (I don't think 
> they were 
> > discussed explicitly):
> > 
> > - Contrary to many other specifications, the main point 
> distinguishing
> >   major from minor versions in the case of the Unicode Standard is
> >   whether a book is produced or not. Production of a book 
> is not only
> >   related to content, but also to timelines,... It is 
> therefore easily
> >   possible, and has happened in the past, that a 'minor' 
> update added
> >   important scripts and characters.
> 
> This ("'minor' update") confuses minor versions and update 
> versions of Unicode.  Update versions (the 3rd number in 
> x.y.z) do not add characters or scripts and are uninteresting 
> to most specs, especially in the context of a generic 
> reference where one is trying to say "do whatever the current 
> Unicode standard says".  The proposed note does talk about 
> "the very latest update version of Unicode".
> 
> > - It seems that there are some people that have 
> difficulties of getting
> >   the idea of a generic reference.
> 
> Agreed. And perhaps our choice of calling it "generic" was 
> not the best one.
> 
> > As an example, the reference to
> >   Unicode 2.0 in XML 1.0 was (except for name syntax) 
> clearly intended
> >   as a generic reference, but many people thought that the spec as
> >   written made it impossible to use post-Unicode 2.0 
> characters *in data*.
> >   To help such people, even if just a little bit, using the newest
> >   reference may be better. (and of course the "as updated 
> from time to time"
> >   text is even more important).
> 
> Of course the "as updated from time to time" is what matters 
> most.  As for using the newest reference, the proposed note 
> does not discourage that, in fact it gives pointers where to 
> find the required info.  What the note makes clear is that 
> there is no obligation to *track* the latest version, as in 
> updating a spec whenever Unicode issues a new update.
> 
> 
> > - It seems unhelpful to the reader of the spec (and 
> remember, there are
> >   usually many more readers than writers) to have to find 
> out on her own
> >   about already available updates. It is clear that we 
> can't list future
> >   updates, but dropping current updates just as a convenience to the
> >   spec writer seems inappropriate.
> 
> I don't think that argument holds water.  In all cases the 
> reader does have to check, there's no other way to find out 
> whether there have been updates since the publication of the 
> spec, whatever the starting point is (current at time of 
> publication or not).  This is just a fact of life with a 
> version-independent reference to a standard that does have 
> new versions from time to time.
> 
> 
> > The above reasons, and the fact that the WG itself 
> carefully made sure 
> > that the full version (including minors) was in the 
> reference seem to 
> > support this. If we want to change this, I suggest that:
> > - We preferably do so in a general update of Charmod.
> > - We actually change the examples to match what the spec says.
> 
> In what way?  The spec says to use the latest version and the 
> examples do that (but of course are stale by now).  What 
> should we change here?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> --
> François
> 
> 

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Received on Tuesday, 20 February 2007 14:53:49 UTC