Re: [idn] UTC recommendations on TC/SC

["Mark Davis" <mark@macchiato.com>]

Thanks for your note. I would be glad to try to clarify it. The UTC position
does disagree with the tsconv document, in maintaining that nameprep does
not require the addition of TC/SC folding.

I believe the consensus view* in the UTC is that SC/TC folding -- when done
correctly -- is quite complex (cf http://cjk.org/cjk/c2c/c2cbasis.htm), that
there is no established standard that precisely defines the conversion, and
that it is not a required feature of nameprep, since multiple registrations
will reasonably meet the user requirements. The latter point is based on
there being typically only two variant spellings: one TC and the other SC.

(This is different from the position vis-a-vis case folding; that case
folding is fairly straightforward, that there is an established standard
that precisely defines the conversion, and that the combinatorics of
multiple registrations quickly become overwhelming, and could not reasonably
be met with multiple registrations.)

This is not in any way to deny the legitimate needs of Chinese users, which
are extremely important to the Unicode consortium. The Chinese, Japanese,
and Korean ideographs *far* outnumber all other characters in the Unicode
standard combined. Their content is defined by the IRG (Ideographic
Rapporteur Group, a subcommittee of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2), which is composed
of representatives of the governments of China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan,
South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, plus a representative from the
Unicode consortium (cf
http://www.info.gov.hk/digital21/eng/structure/intro_irg.html).

Mark

* I'm speaking for myself (not the UTC) in the material following the
asterisk, since this material was not an explicit part of the UTC decision.

—————

Γνῶθι σαυτόν — Θαλῆς
[http://www.macchiato.com]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Brunner" <brunner@nic-naa.net>
To: "Mark Davis" <mark@macchiato.com>
Cc: <idn@ops.ietf.org>; "Paul Hoffman / IMC" <phoffman@imc.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 14:51
Subject: Re: [idn] UTC recommendations on TC/SC


> Mark,
>
> Please offer your understanding of the UTC-88 comment and the tsconv
draft.
> Are these consistent, inconsistent, or unrelated?
>
> > The Unicode Technical Committee discussed this issue at meeting # 88
(Aug
> > 14 - Aug 17). It recommends that Traditional-Simplified Chinese mapping
not
> > be added to nameprep.
>
> Thanks,
> Eric
>
>