Subject: NL locale

From: Johan van Wingen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 May 1995 17:32 +0100 (CET)

A POSIX Locale for the Netherlands
 
The system POSIX, related to UNIX, has specified so-called "locales"
(ISO/IEC 9945-2) to enable users to supply national or cultural
conventions where otherwise only English would be used. Some examples
are given in the standard, to guide national bodies how to fill what
they considered suitable. A New Work Item Proposal to produce a Guide
how to do it has been submitted for voting in SC22.
 
Notwithstanding this, The Netherlands NB became aware of a potential
problem, and the national SC22 (NNI 381 02) decided that a NL-locale
should be developed. Because of the work involved, a project proposal
was formulated, and submitted to NNI and the Netherlands Government
to get a budget. This is now under study, and the resulting NL-locale
is not expected within a few months.
 
The decision was influenced by some rumours that a locale for NL was
already circulating. When we got a copy at last we discovered that the
contents had been produced by a Danish firm with which we had never been
in contact. It goes beyond saying that this caused considerable
irritation, in particular because several details are in direct conflict
with national regulations in our country. The worst case is that of the
character set.
 
In the official Handbook on personal information processing, Part 5, it
is stated (Chapter 20):
 
          ........ This chapter contains recommendations for present and
 future use of coded character sets in the public sector in the
 Netherlands. Point of departure are the recommendations such as are
 included in the NEN standards 1888 and 5825, with respect to
 interchange of personal data and addresses. This recommendation has
 been made mandatory per 1 January 1993 for the civil service and is
 being adhered to on a voluntary basis by other spheres of the public
 administration and by the sectors Social Security, Health Care and
 the Police.
 
 The recommendation reads that if the hardware/software is supporting an
 ISO coding system, that is, one in accordance with the ISO 2022
 structure, it shall use, fitting to the functional needs, characters
 coded in conformance with one of the following standards:
 
 for the basic set:   NEN-ISO/IEC 646
 for Latin-5:         ISO 8859-9
 for Teletex:         ISO/IEC 6937
 
The "made in Denmark" NL-locale specifies Latin-1 (8859-1).
 
Implementers of locales are warned that use of this Danish version could
make their software unsuitable to government procurement. Should they
suffer loss of business as a result of having based their product on an
unofficial locale, a claim for damages to that Danish firm is perfectly
justified.
 
Best regards from J. W. van Wingen
[email-masked] or [email-masked]