Subject: Minutes from October 1990 RIN meeting

From: Dominic Dunlop <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 16:19:33 GMT

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG15 Rapporteur Group on
                   Internationalization

         Minutes of London Meeting, 90-10-04 - 05

             Document JTC1/SC22/WG15RIN-N031

Attendance

     RB   Ralph Barker          (U.S.)
                                UniForum Technical Committee
                                Subcommittee on
                                internationalization;
                                (Expert invited by U.S.)
     DD   Dominic Dunlop        U.K. rapporteur
     GL   Greger Leijonhufvud   (Sweden)
                                Technical reviewer, IEEE 1003.2
                                (Expert invited by U.K.)
     SN   Shigekatsu Nakao      Alternate for Japanese
                                rapporteur, Prof. Nobuo Saito
     KS   Keld Simonsen         Danish rapporteur
     DT   Donn Terry            U.S. rapporteur

1.  Opening_of_Meeting

The meeting convened at the BSI Conference Centre, London,
England at 10:00 on 90-10-04.

1.1  Introductions_and_roll_call_of_rapporteurs

The rapporteurs introduced themselves.  The names and
affiliations of the internationalization rapporteurs and
invited experts appear above.  A full address list appears
as an attachment to this document.

1.2  Selection_of_chair,_secretary,_drafting

As agreed at the group's previous meeting, Keld Simonsen
chaired the meeting.  Dominic Dunlop agreed to act as
secretary, and Greger Leijonhufvud to supervise drafting,
with help in reviewing from Shigekatsu Nakao and the rest
of those present.

1.3  Adoption_of_agenda

The agenda appearing as an attachment to these minutes was
adopted.

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1.4  Approval_of_minutes

The minutes of Paris meeting of 90-06-11 - 12, document
JTC1/SC22/WG15RIN-N028, were approved.

2.  Status,_liaison_and_action_item_reports

2.1  Review_of_action_items

DD:   Write up minutes (WG15RIN-N028), circulate by
      electronic mail, and forward to convener for entry
      into document register.

      Done.

KS:   (Carried over.)  Set up electronic forum to canvas
      European opinions on and solutions to the problem of
      accommodation of IS 646 within the framework of
      POSIX.

      In progress.  (Carried over again.)

KS:   Work up point 10 from JTC1/SC22/WG15-N091, Danish
      national POSIX.2 locale definition, into a full
      proposal for evaluation by group.

      Done.

All:  Review JTC1/SC22/WG15/RIN-N021, draft questionnaire,
      and respond, by electronic mail if possible, to DT.

      In progress.  (Carried over again.)

2.2  Report_on_IEEE_1003.x_internationalization_status

DT reported to the group that, following the incorporation
of "tiny editorial changes", printing plates for the the
new revision of POSIX.1 would be sent to ITTF (the ISO
Information Technology Task Force).  While there is a
chance that the document will appear as IS 9945-1:1990, it
is more likely to be IS 9945-1:1991, as it is the date of
publication, rather than that of approval, which is
significant.  ANSI/IEEE Std. 1003.1:1990 will be identical
in content, and may appear sooner.  ITTF still has slight
problems over copyright notices covering AT&T and UniForum
material appearing in the standard.  It was hoped that
these issues could be resolved at an SC22 meeting during
the week of 90-10-08.

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A few internationalization issues raised in ballot
comments remain outstanding from POSIX.1, presumably to be
addressed by later revisions of the standard.  Discussion
of these was deferred to f4, New Business.

The extensions to POSIX.1 defined in the current draft of
1003.1 no longer have significant internationalization
implications, with the exception of the ISO labeled tape
data interchange format, which raises the same issues on
the handling of filename characters outside the portable
filename character set as does POSIX.2's pax.  Again,
discussion was deferred.

Reporting on draft 10 of 1003.2, DT said that over 300
objections had been received, with around 80 still
outstanding -- many touching on internationalization.
Although a considerable improvement over the response to
draft 9, the level of objections argued against submitting
draft 10 to ISO for acceptance as a CD.  Draft 11, due
over the new year, may be stable enough to submit.  The
final standard is likely to correspond to draft 12 or 13.

A discussion on mechanisms for obtaining timely
international comments on IEEE drafts ensued, culminating
in the formulation of resolution 4.

GL reported that 1003.2a (User Portability Extension) was
in ballot, but had little internationalization content.

Briefly summarizing activity elsewhere in IEEE TCOS, DT
identified 1003.8, Transparent File Access, as having
clear implications for internationalization.  There were
also issues, many of them not yet clearly identified, in
other groups.  Resolutions 5 and 6 aim to establish a
dialogue between RIN and the working groups involved.

Electronic mail is clearly an important element in such
dialogues.  The group decided to set up an open mailing
list, [email-masked], in addition to the existing closed
list ([email-masked]).  The new list will be publicized
among interested parties, and steps will be taken to
serialize and archive the traffic on both lists.  (See
f6.3, Action items.)

2.3  Liaison reports: SC22 internationalization working
     group; SC22 ad hoc working group on character sets

KS reported that the main development of interest to RIN
was DS' recommendation that future SC22
internationalization activity should be based on the work
of WG15 -- even if a few of the requirements which had

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emerged in SC22's work, such as a method of handling
measurement units, were not yet covered by POSIX.

The group agreed that the proposal made sense,
particularly since the localedef mechanism is extensible
to address future needs.  Resolution 7 commends the Danish
proposal.

2.4  TSG1_internationalization_activity

DT reported that he was unaware of any developments in
TSG1, which is in the process of producing its final
report.  The future of the group following its publication
is unclear.

2.5  Other_internationalization_activity_

GL reported briefly that the UniForum Technical Committee
Subcommittee on Internationalization, having completed its
messaging proposal, had shifted its focus to two areas:
internationalization architecture; and data announcement.
Both were to be discussed at a subcommittee meeting
commencing on 90-10-08.

GL and DT reported that X/Open was close to freezing the
functional content of XPG4, with a projected availability
date of 1992.  The document will represent a considerable
increase in internationalization content relative to XPG3.
In order that the group can be better informed of X/Open's
direction, an informal report is to be requested from the
organization.  (See f6.3, Action items.)

GL expressed concern at the number of organizations
currently in the process of defining Application Binary
Interfaces (ABIs) with the aim of creating de facto
standards.  If ABIs are too tightly written, it may prove
difficult or impossible to preserve binary compatibility
in the face of future standards designed only to preserve
source compatibility with previous standards.  This would
be a barrier to the adoption of new consensus standards.
The group agreed that developments in this area should be
monitored.

NS drew the group's attention to PortSoft, a grouping of
Pacific rim UNIX user groups.  It has a specific interest
in the promotion of the use of multi-byte character sets.

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3.  Balloting_Activities

These issues had been discussed under f2.2 above, and are
revisited in f4.4.

4.  New_Business

4.1  Example_national_profiles_and_locales

4.1.1  Danish

The group discussed the details of the Danish locale
material in Annex E of IS 9954-1:1990 and Annex F of
IEEE 1003.2, draft 10.  While there was no problem with
the former, the group had a number of questions about the
latter.  In particular, choice of code 29 as an escape
character was questioned, as was the use of short, but
often opaque, charmap names for characters outside the
portable filename character set.  KS stated that both
reflect compromises intended to facilitate the entry of
any character in the charmap from terminals incapable of
generating all encodings.  Similar, but inevitably
mutually incompatible methods are used in existing
commercial systems.  Tests carried out to date suggest
that the method works, but further testing is required.

The group agreed that information about the charmap names
and rationale should be included in draft 11 of 1003.2,
and that amended versions of the Annex should be
circulated to interested parties for comment as soon as
possible.  (See f6.3, Action items.)

4.1.2  Japanese

The group discussed a preliminary draft of a Japanese
national profile for POSIX under development by the
Japanese SSI POSIX group.  (A later draft of the document
will be made available for registration by the group.)
The material raised many issues, which were discussed in
detail by the group, and will be summarized in a separate
document by DD.  A number of action items resulted.  (See
f6.3, Action items.)

Of the issues raised, a few appeared to be specific to
Japan, and hence within the scope of that country's
national profile.  The majority are probably relevant to
several territories, suggesting that they should be
addressed by the mechanisms defined in international
standards for POSIX.  For example, the definition of an
LC_MEASUREMENT locale category may be desirable.

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Knowledge gained through the discussion of the issues
raised by Japan should be fed into the questionnaire, in
order to determine which are of international interest.
(See f6.3, Action items.)

Collation was among the issues discussed.  It was agreed
that material describing multi-level collation should be
incorporated into the next draft of 1003.2 in order to
give greater guidance to those defining locales.  (See
f6.3, Action items.)

4.2  Harmonization_issues

4.2.1  Harmonization and collection of national locales
       and profiles

Japan proposed, and the group agreed that it was important
to discourage needless divergence among the means used to
express locales.  For example, the charmap names
corresponding to a given glyph should not differ between
locale definitions without good reason.  Clearly, it is
the responsibility of ISO to define guidelines for
harmonization of this type, as the matter is outside the
scope of any one member body (such as ANSI).  DT suggested
that a future resolution could express the group's
concerns to WG15, and request a national working group
harmonization meeting under existing rules.  This would,
among other things, serve notice on interested parties
that they should be concerning themselves with the topic.

Before the group can put forward such a resolution,
however, it needs to do more work in defining the precise
areas of concern.  Among these are

   - Creation of new categories by national bodies.

   - Creation of new mechanisms by national bodies.

   - Extension by national bodies of limits in the
     standard.  (For example, of equivalence classes.)

An action for the production of a working paper on the
topic was put on the Japanese rapporteur, Dr. Nobuo Saito.
(See f6.3, Action items.)  The group will discuss the
eventual disposition of this information, which should be
as easily available as the standards to which it refers,
yet not appear to be POSIX-specific, at a later meeting.

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4.2.2  Character_naming

The group formulated resolution 8 in connection with the
harmonization of character names.  (See also f4.8 below.)

4.2.3  Yen_symbol_(Y)

The Japanese have a specific problem in a that JIS X 0201,
a very widely-used Japanese character encoding, gives the
Yen symbol, Y, the same encoding as ASCII's backslash (\).
The Japanese wish to find a way of using the same encoding
both for single-character quoting in the shell and
elsewhere, and as a currency symbol.  The context of the
code should determine its display representation and its
treatment by parsers.

On the face of it, this does not appear to be possible.
DD stated that the U.K. position on a similar issue, where
the British pounds symbol could either be a currency
symbol, or flag a shell comment, had been to resolve the
issue in favour of shell syntax, as this corresponded to
common usage.  A conforming shell script could use new
POSIX.2 mechanisms unambiguously to deliver the currency
symbol in the current locale if it were needed for
display.

In Japan's case, the issue is further clouded by the
wording of 1003.2, f2.2.2, which can be read as
disallowing any alternate currency symbol other than
pounds  and $.  The group did not discuss alternative
wording.

The group discussed a number of work-arounds, such as
character doubling, and heuristic translation of narrower
to wider character sets, but reached no resolution.  KS
observed that DS had submitted a potential solution to the
U.S.  member body, but had not received any formal
comment.  It was agreed that the proposal should be
resubmitted, and that there should be a written response.
(See f6.3, Action items.)

The specific issue of the Yen sign will be rolled into the
ongoing exploration by KS of seven-bit character set
issues.

4.3  Character_classes_(Kanji,_Katakana,_Cyrillic_etc.)

GL proposed, and the group agreed, that "All conforming
implementations shall support at least, and all portable
applications shall use no more than, <the traditional
implicit and explicit character classes>".  (The final

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phrase is shorthand for the classes recognized by common-
usage C and other tools of similar vintage.)  It is
expected that the ISO standard for the C programming
language will (sooner or later) define a mechanism for
creating arbitrary character classes by adding new
keywords to the LC_TYPE category.  A short discussion on
implementation ensued, reaching the conclusion that the
cost of supporting a new and more general class mechanism
need not be high.

4.4  Localedef_discussion

The IEEE 1003.2 ballot on draft 10 has precipitated a
number of objections both to the need for support of
internationalization in general, and to particular aspects
of the support proposed.  These objections can be
characterized as coming from the Berkeley UNIX community,
and as reflecting concern that the proposed
internationalization support, which does not correspond to
existing practice, will force POSIX-conforming
implementations to be bigger and slower than would
otherwise be the case.  One proposed solution is to delete
all internationalization support from the draft, or to
make it completely optional.

The 1003.2 reviewers, represented by DT and GL, would like
to find a compromise which would allow these objections to
be withdrawn, as a document without some level of
mandatory internationalization support would clearly be
unacceptable to ISO member bodies.  The guidance of RIN
was sought.

Giving close consideration to the internationalization
requirements of current drafts, the group felt that it was
already the case that implementations would have
considerable latitude in the degree of change that they
would allow to the default and/or POSIX locales.  Further
wording about error returns from localedef could make this
clear.  Of course, the conformance document for such an
implementation would have to make it apparent that support
for arbitrary locales was not provided.  (Although support
for a small number of implementor-supplied locales might
be provided.)  The group was of the opinion that such
implementations might be successful in niche markets, but
would ultimately be unsuccessful in world markets.

The editors will return to the objectors with this
information.

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4.5  TZ,_era

Work on defining national locales has revealed a need to
accommodate timezone names including digits preceded by a
plus or minus sign, as in GMT+7.  (The current definition
excludes both digits and signs.)  It was agreed that the
problem could be solved in a backward-compatible manner by
introducing less-than and greater-than (< and >) as
quoting characters for timezone names.  Thus,
TZ="<UTC+0>+0<UTC+1>" would set the TZ environment
variable to a permissible value.  IEEE Std. 1003.1 will be
modified accordingly at its next revision, and the change
will work its way through to a future version of  9945-1.

The Japanese need for a national locale which deals with
era dating linked to the years of accession of Emperors,
had been discussed under f4.1.2 above.  It is clear that
the currently defined mechanisms are inadequate to this
task.  It is less clear how many locales outside Japan
have similar requirements, and whether it will be possible
to define common mechanisms which meet most or all of
these needs as part of the POSIX standards.  The
questionnaire should seek answers to these questions.
However, the group agreed that the TZ specification should
be modified to permit era dates, and to allow the
specification of date names for the first to thirty-first
days of the month.

4.6  Pax_utility

The group considers that the as-yet unresolved Canadian
comment about the treatment in archive file formats of
characters from outside the portable filename character
set stems from a wording problem in the existing text, and
can be fixed by an editorial change.  (A comment on
LOGNAME has already been resolved in a similar manner.)

KS remarked that Denmark was working on a general solution
whereby arbitrary filenames could be represented on an
archive using only an escape character and sequences of
portable filename characters spelling out names defined in
the charmap.  (Of course, it will be necessary for
format-creating and format-reading utilities to agree on
these names, emphasizing the desirability of
harmonization.)  A proposal to the IEEE will be
forthcoming.

DD enquired about the status of the public-domain version
of the pax utility, the development of which had been
sponsored by USENIX.  DT replied that, as far as he was
aware, it was at the 1003.2 draft 9 level, and, while

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little effort would be needed to bring it into line with
draft 10, USENIX was no longer funding development.

4.7  Layered_locales

Work on the Danish locale has shown the value of a
mechanism which could facilitate the definition of
families of closely-related locales.  For example, the
Faroe Island locale differs from that of Denmark only in
its TZ, LC_TIME and LC_RESPONSE descriptions.  It was
agreed to raise the issue of the addition of an <include>
or <copy> directive to the input format for the 1003.2
localedef utility with the 1003.2 technical editor.  (See
f6.3, Action items.)

4.8  Character_set_terminology

Reviewing JTC1/SC22/WG15RIN-N030, the group decided to
defer requests for formal action from other JTC1 groupings
and/or member bodies until hearing the opinion of the
POSIX technical editor on the impact of incorporating the
terminology into 1003.2.  (See f6.3, Action items.)

The word "byte", used by POSIX documents in the context of
a "unit of storage", is particularly problematic.  To
substitute "octet", the word preferred by ISO, would not
be technically correct, and would result in many
objections in the IEEE balloting process.  There are also
problems in POSIX' usage of the term "string".

Briefly revisiting the issue of character names, DT
commented that U.S. and British dictionaries tended to
agree more with POSIX usage than with that of ISO.

4.9  Messages

This issue was not discussed because of the pressure of
time.  The group had heard earlier that the IEEE 1003.1
working group had rejected messaging proposals from
UniForum and X/Open at its July 1990 meeting, and that
UniForum was not devoting resources to the further
development of its proposal.

4.10  Summary_of_internationalization_issues

Owing to a lack of time for discussion, DT requested that
group members review the draft document that he circulated
at the meeting, and comment by electronic mail.

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4.11  Questionnaire

The notes for the previous subsection apply also to this
topic.

5.  Review_and_Approval_of_Resolutions

5.1  Resolutions

The resolutions appearing as JTC1/SC22/WG15RIN-N032 were
approved.

5.2  Recommendations_for_WG15

Resolutions 4 - 9 require action by WG15.  The group
decided that it was not necessary to forward any documents
to WG15 from the meeting.

6.  Closing_Procedures

6.1  Future meeting considerations -- request for
     invitations

There was some feeling that the group should meet again
well before the April 1991 meeting of WG15.  Ultimately,
however, it was decided to schedule the next meeting for
the days immediately prior to the WG15 meeting, and to
process as much business as possible by electronic mail
until then.

Next meeting:   90-04-22 - 23   The Netherlands (exact
                                location t.b.a)

[Note: Since the October 1990 meeting of WG15 rescheduled
its Netherlands meeting to 91-05-13 - 17, it is suggested
that RIN's next meeting should be moved to 91-05-13 - 14.
A formal notice to this effect may be expected from the
WG15 convener.]

No further meetings were scheduled.

6.2  Document_number_assignment

The following document numbers were assigned:

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N029   Japan              Draft raw answer to Donn Terry's
                          questionnaire
N030   9945-1             Memo on standard terminology
       technical editor   related to character issues
N031   RIN                Minutes, agenda and attendance list
                          from London, 90-10-04 - 05
N032   RIN                Resolutions from London, 90-10-04 -
                          05

6.3  Review_of_action_items

A list of action items compiled by DD was informally
reviewed.  Due to the pressure if time, it was agreed that
final approval should take place once those present had
seen these minutes:

RB:   Investigate the possibility of links between wg15rin
      and i18n mail lists and the uniforum-intl mail list.

RB:   Send KS mail list serializing/archiving software
      used by UniForum at Sun Microsystems.

DD/KS: Send rapporteur list to RB by electronic mail for
      coordination purposes.

DD:   Obtain example costing figures on TCOS institutional
      representative responsibilities from John
      Quarterman, and forward to KS.

DD:   Write up minutes, agenda and attendance list
      (JTC1/SC22/WG15RIN-N031) and resolutions
      (JTC1/SC22/WG15RIN-N032), circulate by electronic
      mail, and forward to convener for entry in document
      register.

DD:   Summarize issues raised in discussion of Japanese
      locale; circulate to group.

GL:   Add %<something> descriptor to date format
      descriptions, allowing for explicit printing of AM
      or PM (or their equivalents in a particular locale).

GL:   Amend 9945-2 draft to replace the LC_DATE concept of
      abbreviated month name with alternate month name.

GL:   Investigate the possibility of links between wg15rin
      mail list and UNIX International mail lists.

SN:   Request that a representative of X/Open Company Ltd.
      provides a report to RIN either in written form, or
      in person at the next meeting of RIN.

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KS:   (Ongoing) Continue canvassing European opinions on
      and solutions to the problem of accommodation of IS
      646 within the framework of POSIX.

KS:   Capture RIN comments on informally-circulated 1003.2
      draft 10, pass them back to Hal Jespersen, and
      subsequently circulate amended result to selected
      members of WG15 etc.

KS:   Send copy of proposal on escape character
      substitution to DT by electronic mail.

KS:   Include issue of collision between Yen-symbol (Y)
      and escape character in discussions on seven-bit
      coded character set issues.

KS:   Pass additional materials on collating, such as
      further papers from Alain LaBonte of CSA, to GL for
      use in production of future drafts of 1003.2

KS:   Promote seeking of TCOS Institutional Representative
      status by EUUG.

KS:   Arrange to put serial numbers on all postings to
      mail-lists.

KS:   Set up public mail-list, [email-masked]; announce to
      those who need to know and tell them to tell their
      friends.

Dr. Saito: Produce paper on issues of locale production
      for group.  (May already be action from WG15 Paris
      meeting.)

DT et al: (Ongoing) Continue work on questionnaire

DT:   Review following topics, and, where necessary, amend
      draft questionnaire to solicit specific information:

         - Need for locale-dependent binary time and date
           information from system (struct tm)

         - Interest in and requirements for an
           LC_MEASUREMENT locale

         - Interest in greater flexibility in
           representation of AM, PM and related concepts,
           including noon and midnight, in output of date,
           and input to at.

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DT:   Advise X/Open that usage of upper-case for LANG
      codes in XPG is contrary to the recommendations of
      IS 639:1988, Code for the representation of names of
      languages; and that @ (<commercial at sign>) should
      not be used in locale names, as it is an IS 646
      national variant symbol.

DT:   Investigate the possibility of links between wg15rin
      mail list and X/Open mail lists.

DT:   Request X/Open to give consideration to the
      usefulness of an LC_MEASUREMENT locale, and to its
      potential contents.

DT:   Respond in writing to KS proposal on escape
      character substitution.

DT:   Review following topics, and, where necessary, amend
      draft survey to solicit specific information.

DT:   Request 9945-1 technical editor to report informally
      on the impact of incorporating the character-related
      terminology outlined in JTC1/SC22/WG15RIN-N030 into
      1003.2.

6.4  Thanks_to_host

As a representative of BSI, DD was thanked on behalf of
the group for the provision of facilities and
accommodation for the meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 18:10 on 90-10-05.

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                        RIN Agenda
             Meeting of 90-10-04 - 05, London
                  Attachment to Minutes

1.  Opening of Meeting                                   1
    1.1   Introductions and roll call of
          rapporteurs                                    1
    1.2   Selection of chair, secretary, drafting        1
    1.3   Adoption of agenda                             1
    1.4   Approval of minutes                            2

2.  Status, liaison and action item reports              2
    2.1   Review of action items                         2
    2.2   Report on IEEE 1003.x internationalization
          status                                         2
    2.3   Liaison reports: SC22 internationalization
          working group; SC22 ad hoc working group on
          character sets                                 3
    2.4   TSG1 internationalization activity             4
    2.5   Other internationalization activity            4

3.  Balloting Activities                                 5

4.  New Business                                         5
    4.1   Example national profiles and locales          5
    4.2   Harmonization issues                           6
    4.3   Character classes (Kanji, Katakana,
          Cyrillic etc.)                                 7
    4.4   Localedef discussion                           8
    4.5   TZ, era                                        9
    4.6   Pax utility                                    9
    4.7   Layered locales                               10
    4.8   Character set terminology                     10
    4.9   Messages                                      10
    4.10  Summary of internationalization issues        10
    4.11  Questionnaire                                 11

5.  Review and Approval of Resolutions                  11
    5.1   Resolutions                                   11
    5.2   Recommendations for WG15                      11

6.  Closing Procedures                                  11
    6.1   Future meeting considerations -- request
          for invitations                               11
    6.2   Document number assignment                    11
    6.3   Review of action items                        12
    6.4   Thanks to host                                14

                          - i -