[idn] Moving forward

[C C Magnus Gustavsson <mag@lysator.liu.se>]

The current discussion is not leading anywere. The work group seemed
to make some progress half a year ago but now it's stuck again.


We should ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Do we require or want a rough consensus?

   There is a significant amount of people who demand ACE in the short
   term and another significant amount of people who demand UTF-8 in
   the long term.

   So if the answer is "no" we can run one part over and go for a ACE
   only or UTF-8 only solution.

   If the answer is "yes" we need to realize that there is only one
   solution that we might reach consensus about: arch-2 or "ACE now -
   UTF-8 eventually".

   It should be obvious by now that we can never agree on anything
   else even if we have this discussion until the End of Time. So, if
   we want consensus we should now move on to discuss the following:

2. Given arch-2, how can we make ACE and UTF-8 co-exist?

3. How is ACE to be phased out in the future?


I think we can agree then that some fallback solution is needed. If
UTF-8 is possible, the software must use it. Otherwise, use ACE. New
software must be able to use UTF-8 to comply to standards.

Then we know that ACE will eventually be phased out as soon as all
systems are upgraded. Then we don't need a deadline; we wouldn't be
able to enforce a deadline anyway.

Do we want consensus? Is this an acceptable way to move forward?


/Magnus (who didn't vote in the straw poll, lacking good alternatives)