Subject: SC22 N2986 - Ireland National Body Activity Report for SC22 Plenary - PLENARY AGENDA ITEM

From: William Rinehuls <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 18:28:40 -0400 (EDT)

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ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
Secretariat:  U.S.A.  (ANSI)

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
N2986

TITLE:
Ireland National Body Activity Report for the September 1999 JTC 1/SC22
Plenary - PLENARY AGENDA ITEM

DATE ASSIGNED:
1999-09-02

SOURCE:
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
National Body Activity Report

PROJECT NUMBER:
N/A

STATUS:
Discussion of this document will be an agenda item for the September 1999
JTC 1/SC22 Plenary

ACTION IDENTIFIER:
FYI

DUE DATE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION:
Text

CROSS REFERENCE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION FORM:
Def

Address reply to:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat
William C. Rinehuls
8457 Rushing Creek Court
Springfield, VA 22153 USA
Telephone:  +1 (703) 912-9680
Fax:  +1 (703) 912-2973
email:  [email-masked]

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---------- Forwarded message ----------

Irish National Report to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22

As reported last year, the Irish Member Body really has as its particular
interest only one project of one WG of SC22, namely ISO/IEC 14651 of
SC22/WG20, which is concerned with sorting the UCS. One member of the
NSAI/AGITS/WG6 has an interest in C++, but apparently he works directly
with the relevant SC22/WG and has not reported to WG6 about it.

As convener of WG6 I continue to find it rather burdensome to have to deal
with all the SC22 correspondence and make sure Ireland votes on time and
so forth when our chief interest is in one standard made by one SC22/WG.

The relation between ISO/IEC 10646 and ISO/IEC 14651 is of extreme
importance. The fact that ISO/IEC 10646 and the Unicode Standard are
technically identical is highly relevant here. The Unicode Technical
Committee handles _both_ encoding and ordering, in the Unicode Standard
and the Unicode Collation Algorithm. US and Canadian members of SC22/WG20
are also members of the UTC and JTC1/SC2. Administering ISO/IEC 10646 and
ISO/IEC 14651 in two different SCs is impractical and needlessly expensive.

Ireland urges SC22 in the strongest possible terms to recommend and
initiate immediate transfer of responsibility for ISO/IEC 14651 to
JTC1/SC2. There is nothing so overwhelmingly relevant to "programming
languages" or "internationalization" with regard to ISO/IEC 14651 that it
must remain administered by SC22. It is an algorithm for ordering
characters, but the algorithm has been developed, and maintenance of the
Common Template as ISO/IEC 10646 grows can only be done by an SC that
understands the characters.

Ireland is considering withdrawing from P-membership in SC22 because of
the issues raised above. The only reason we have not done so is our sense
of duty to ISO/IEC 14651. SC22 should consider in plenary the implications
of the contemplated Irish withdrawal from SC22 with regard to ISO/IEC
14651, especially in consideration of the minimum number of participating
countries for any project or WG.

Michael Everson
Convener, NSAI/AGITS/WG6

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