Re: Communicator Unicode

From: John Gardiner Myers (jgmyers@netscape.com)
Date: Mon Sep 15 1997 - 13:33:30 EDT


Yung-Fong Tang wrote:

> The answer is easy. You can find UNICODE-1-1-UTF-7 in the document
> ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/character-sets
> You cannot find UTF-7 in the document
> ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/character-sets

Actually, the answer isn't quite as easy as that. RFC 2152, which
obsoletes the RFC 1642 defining UNICODE-1-1-UTF-7, states that the
charset parameter to use is "utf-7".

The IANA character-sets registration process is being redone. I suspect
but have not confirmed that the IANA is deferring new charset
registrations until this new process is in place, and that the
registration of the "utf-7" charset label is caught in this process.

While RFC 2152 is only of Informational status, my take of the consensus
of IETF Applications area folks at the Munich meeting is that the
"utf-7" label is better than any other for this charset. The
formalities just haven't caught up yet.

On another note, I have requested that RFC 1641 be moved to Historic.
Hopefully, there will be a Last Call on this before too long.



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