Subject: LID Saga - Explanations and apologies

From: ALB <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 16:02 GMT

----------------------   Forwarded Mail Follows   ----------------------

To:      [email-masked] Via MAILER
cc:      [email-masked] Via MAILER
From:    ALAIN_LA_BONTE (Alain LaBonte'  +1 418 644 1835)
Subject: LID Saga - explanations and apologies
Date:    Fri, 10 Dec 1993  15:53 GMT

Willem Wakker says:

>You have seen our conclusion, and Alains response
>does not give us any (new) facts which could merit a reconsideration.

Well it's a dialogue of deaf people. We do not seem to be on the same
wave length. That is why I was so upset because I found the disposition
of comments insulting. If my answer was not understandable then I guess
it will be bad for i18n and I am sorry I am not a good advocate.

>What WG11 was asked to do is to include a datatype with certain properties
>and operations. The base documentation, cited to support the datatype,
>does not fully describe the datatype upto the level needed for WG11 to
>be able to include the datatype in LID.

What is the level needed? I was told before that WG11 was not interested by
internals and we agreed on that during the discussion. At a higher level, it
is well defined enough for inclusion. If not, what is missing and required?

> For instance, the Canadian standard gives itself a limited scope
> (only a few languages). It is not the task
>of WG11 to investigate the full applicability of this standard to say Chinese.

All right but I thought, if you had not understood that (which I thought I had
said during the previous dicussions), that I had brought a new fact in
informing you the POSIX LC_COLLATE definitions were reasonably applicable
to all known languages of the world. The POSIX LC_COLLATE definitions allow
producing the content whose container would be described by the datatype
in question. So if this is not a new fact, it means you knew it. Then why saying
the insulting statement that this work only aims at a few national bodies and
a few languages with no proof it would work for others?

>It is good to hear from Alain that work is underway in this area, but
>one cannot expect WG11 either to contribute to this work, or even to wait
>for the results of this work.

Fair enough. It is not what is requested. No need to wait.

>3- Despite the positive ending of Alains comments, his message contains
>a number of serious personal accusations (the suggestion of not having
>an open mind, and even intellectual terrorism). I consider these serious
>statements against WG11, and in particular against the members of WG11 who
>have spend large amounts of time in trying to come to an agreement with
>Alain on the issues he raised. I think that these accusations are highly
>unfair and not deserved.

Well, I am sorry if I hurt somebody. I was hurt by the arrogant statements
made in the disposition of comments as explained above. Maybe it is because
of the difficulty to be on the same wave length. I have difficulty with
unexplained statements such as a practical requirement is not a sufficient
justification. What criteria make WG11 accept a justification as acceptable?

>all references to support the requested datatype
>(the Canadian Standard and the SHARE document) are based on work done by Alain.
>In other words: everything points back to Alain, and only to him.

Although I worked a lot on this I am not alone. This is insulting for other
contributors. Work done by IBM on showing this method was applicable to all
natural languages they support was not my job. Work done in POSIX in
formalizing a syntax was not my job in any case. SHARE Europe enhanced my
work a lot and so did SHARE Inc. (USA) in extending the function requirements.
Within WG20 we had not enough time to discuss this but the ordering engine
(which I have the mandate to edit, will have as a natural consequence to
require that datatype. I feel my duty continuing to ask for that.

I am just discouraged that discussion with WG11 ceased much before WG11 reached
a conclusion that I received 2 days ago only.

Btw I did not intend to send my previous comment to SC22 list (I made a
mistake, as I wanted to send it to SC22WG20 instead, which I did not do).

Again I am really sorry that my comments were considered serious accusations.
It was a quick reaction and I was not pointing anybody specifically but
just very upset in saying this was intellectual terrorism. I think the sentence
I commented could be interpreted like this but I felt both the statement and
my comment were impersonal. I apologize without condition.

Alain LaBont<e'>