Re: language tags useful? (was Re: Comments ...)

From: Mark Crispin (MRC@cac.washington.edu)
Date: Sat Jun 07 1997 - 16:11:54 EDT


On Sat, 7 Jun 1997 20:44:15 +0200 (MET DST), Martin J. Duerst wrote:
> The IAB charset workshop document also has made the correct conclusion
> that language information is in many cases very valuable. Said workshop
> or document, however, has NOT concluded that in-stream language codes
> are necessary or that they are a good solution.

For the record:

I was at the IAB charset workshop, and I am one of the co-authors of RFC 2130.
I was one of those who felt that embedded language tags were essential.

It was left an open issue because we didn't want to deal with it at that point
in time. The wording of the document was very carefully made so as not to
prejudice future discussion about embedded language tags.

It is important to understand that *no* conclusions were reached at all about
language tags. Some people felt very strongly that they were necessary and a
good solution. The majority felt that the question needed more research. I
don't remember anyone having strong opinions that they were unnecessary or a
poor solution.

The IAB charset workshop went through a lot of material. Although MLSF was
something that I had in mind when I was there, it is undeniably the case that
if it had tried to resolve the embedded language tags issue then, it would not
have done as good a job as was done in MLSF.



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