Re: [idn] Document Status?

["James Seng" <jseng@pobox.org.sg>]

John,

> It seems to me that Dave (and I) have raised two sorts of issues
> which are very different in character than, e.g., bidi and
> unicode 3.2.   One has to do with the _style_ of the documents,
> e.g., to paraphrase Dave (I hope accurately), whether they
> specify a protocol or outline an implementation.   That is
> somewhat a matter of taste, and you could legitimately argue
> that it is an editorial matter, as long as the specification is
> complete and unambiguous.

The draft in questions have gone through the working group last call.
Regardless of the merits of these issues, it should have been bought up
before or during the last call. After the co-chairs move the documents for
IESG consideration, we (as the group) have very little control over what
happen next.

As Patrik said, the IESG/ADs would make their own comments. Sometimes, they
reject the draft (for various reasons such as technical failure). If we are
lucky, they may have minor editorial changes. But typically, it is along the
vague line between editorial to substain technical changes.

These are done to make sure the "specification is complete and unambiguous".

My note is to clarify to the group (not just to Dave), that we are in this
process with the ADs. Most of the stuff going on are minor, request for
additional paragraph for clarification. But a few are substained enough to
warrant another partial wg last call (which is what we did).

> (i) If there is any question at all about how a given codepoint
> or character is to be interpreted, or whether it is permitted,
> in any context, then that question must be resolved.  Without
> such a resolution, the document would contain "known
> deficiencies", which makes it inappropriate for standardization.
>
> (ii) If there is a substantive claim that the document cannot be
> implemented in an interoperable way without out-of-band
> profiling or oral tradition --and I think Dave has made exactly
> that claim, although in different language-- then either

These are technical failure. If it happen, the IESG would kill the whole
process and and throw the draft back to us. So far, they havent.

The ADs have done some write up of their concerns, and the authors is
working on the changes to be made. I have not seen all the changes myself
yet so we dont know if it is substainable to warrant another last call. If
it is, we will.

So lets not jump into conclusion. The short answer is "yes, we are still
moving. be patient"

-James Seng