Re: Common Locale Data Repository Project

From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Thu Apr 22 2004 - 17:51:33 EDT

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    From: "Rick McGowan" <rick@unicode.org>
    > The Unicode® Consortium announced today that it will be hosting the Common
    > Locale Data Repository project, providing key building blocks for software
    > to support the world's languages.
    >
    > For more information and links to the project pages, please see:
    >
    > http://www.unicode.org/press/press_release-cldr.html

    Is that a contribution of the Unicode Consortium to the OpenI18n.org project
    (former li18nux.org, maintained with most help from the FSF), or a decision to
    make the OpenI18n.org project be more open by pushing it to a more visible
    standard?

    In that case, I'm surprised to see that the preliminary pages on the
    Unicode.org's CLDR project defines it as a UTS (Standard) when it is a revizion
    of a previously published released 1.0 of LDML, plus the repository which is
    still hosted in the IBM's ICU project repository...

    Some confusion will occur for now if the CLDR pages reference a UTS (standard)
    rather than a UTR, which it should still be now, until there's a final approval
    as a standard (don't forget the Microsoft vote here, as it is camaigning a lot
    against Linux, which was the base platform from which the Openi18n.org project
    was born. Also the only certified platform for Openi18n.org is RedHat, a Linux
    platform...

    Will Microsoft endorse this addition into the domain of Unicode.org? I hope so,
    if this can help improve interoperability of platforms in this domain. I also
    hope that IBM will continue his woderful support for the CLDR collection of data
    for the repository, and that Microsoft and others will contribute too to make
    this important repository a key element for the convergence of platforms.

    May be this collaborative and richer standard will bring to the final approval
    of the unfinished ISO 3066 standard which developers and users want since so
    long...

    What will happen to the discussion lists on openi18n.org? Will it be easy to
    contribute locale data or to submit bug reports as it was in the past? I'm sure
    that the Unicode subcommitee that will take in charge the CLDR will need a new
    policy to accept new members using also their own technical solutions.

    At least I see a good point here if Openi18n.org merges with Unicode's goals:
    Unicode has now a concrete application of its standard (for example the CLDR
    will contain what has always been missing in Unicode: a clear definition of its
    usage with concreate languages and locales; so Unicode will not ignore the
    specific issues that come with some languages)



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