L2/01-032 From: Patrik Fältström [paf@cisco.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 1:35 AM Message from Liaison in IETF to Unicode Consortium I have had some discussions with Rick McGowan as we are the two liaisons between IETF and UTC, about references in each others documents -- and specifically references in RFC's to documents from UTC. RFC's, which are permanent document, can only make normative references to permanent documents (i.e. specific versions, not generically to "UTF-8"). Because of this, I have invited Rick to write an RFC which explains to the IETF what naming practice UTC uses, and what equivalent levels exists in UTC naming mechanism to the naming mechanism the IETF uses (as explained in RFC 2026). Also, I would like you at the meeting to also discuss the review process, and let me know (let the IETF know) when in the UTC process IETF should come in and comment on proposed documents in the UTC. Issues with updates of UTC documents can include (but is not limited to): - Changes in text which is (partially) duplicated to an RFC, so that RFC needs to be updated - Changes in UTC documents which are referenced from RFCs, and the RFCs needs to be reviewed / updated / obsoleted by new RFCs - Changes which does not work well in the Internet environment so the IETF would like to ask UTC to _really_ consider whether the document should say what it does Examples of these three are (in order): - The UTF-8 specification which just UTC updated - The UTF-16 specification - The UTF-32 specification which just as UTF-16 allow different byte order, and the BOM Regarding the last one, it might be that IESG feel that an RFC is needed to say that "on the Internet, in applications, only one byte order is allowed, and not the BOM". We are not there yet, but, people in the IETF does not like different byte orders. I will unfortunately not be at the next UTC meeting, but am happy to discuss this via email -- and I hope that someone familiar with the IETF can help Rick "on site" with discussions. Harald Alvestrand might be there (I have not checked with Harald, and wanted to have this text sent asap). Regards, Patrik Patrik Fältström Internet Engineering Task Force Area Director, Applications Area http://www.ietf.org Phone: (Stockholm) +46-8-4494212 (San Jose) +1-408-525-0940 PGP: 2DFC AAF6 16F0 F276 7843 2DC1 BC79 51D9 7D25 B8DC