Secretariat ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 - Toshiko KIMURA
IPSJ/ITSCJ (Information Processing Society of Japan/Information Technology Standards Commission of Japan)*
Room 308-3, Kikai-Shinko-Kaikan Bldg., 3-5-8, Shiba-Koen, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105 JAPAN
Tel: +81 3 3431 2808; Fax: +81 3 3431 6493; E-mail: kimura@itscj.ipsj.or.jp; http://www.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2
*A Standard Organization accredited by JISC

These comments concentrate on those aspects that deal with the functioning of WG 2.

ISO/IEC 10646 is called the "Universal Character Set" for a reason: it is intended to cover all the scripts of the world. This view is widely shared by the industry and the user communities, both of which participate both directly and indirectly in the work of WG 2.

Thus, the stated wish to create rational limitations to additions of new characters or scripts must not lead to arbitrary barriers for entry. The market relevance for inclusion cannot be defined in the terms proposed in the contribution by the Netherlands National Body, as long as the industry upholds the above stated stand on universality.

Admittedly, as the result of the above, it is not uncommon that any given National Body may find itself in a situation, where it has no expertise on a particular script in the process of being encoded. The value of the participation of such a National Body then lies in their expertise in the standardization process and in the general aspects of encoding characters for use in IT applications.

The process in SC 2/WG 2 is a transparent one and extensive efforts continue to be made to implement advanced planning for it. This process is being continuously improved and we welcome the Netherlands to participate in this process in co-operation with the other National Bodies, liaison organizations, and experts. It is unavoidable that many issues will be discussed and prepared outside the formal WG operation. In particular, WG2 has made successful use of ad-hoc meetings to resolve complex technical issues requiring specialized expertise. This would appear to be in line with the stated wishes of the Netherlands NB.

The suggestion by the Netherlands NB to turn over sections of the standard to relevant user communities is at best impractical for lack of mechanism and control and at its worst would result in a fractured standard, something that very much goes against the idea of a unified, universal character set which is the primary market requirement.

As to the particular technical issue raised in attachment B, WG 2 has gone out of its way to accommodate the Netherlands NB position in that matter (see WG 2 N 1789R2, of which an extract is attached to this document) and this issue would thus appear to be resolved, as of this meeting.

This has been a difficult process, not least because the relevant contribution of the Netherlands in Crete was withdrawn at the request of the Netherlands representative. Other than that, we believe that the representative of the Netherlands has been given more than ample opportunity to present his formal and informal views on this and other issues in the WG, in ad-hoc meetings, and on the e-mail discussion list.

 
Attachment

Extract of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2 N 1789R2, Draft Report on JT 1/SC 2 letter ballot on FPDAM.18 to ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993 (E), (Various letters and symbols).
 
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Netherlands. (N) Not accepted.

Many National Bodies within JTC1/SC2 wish to make the disctinction between letters S and T with cedilla and the same letters with comma below in some circumstances.

It is recognized that this distinction has not always been consistently adopted in printed material, as is clear from the examples provided by the Netherlands in SC2 N3047. However, there is a need to provide separate code positions now so that the distinction can be adopted in future wherever desired.

An explanatory note, shown below, will be added to Annex P for the four characters to which this comment applies. This is intended to address the concerns expressed by the Netherlands in more detailed explanations of the comment that appears in the ballot response.

Text of Note for Annex P.

0218 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH COMMA BELOW

This character is intended for use only in those cases where it is necessary to make a distinction with the letter with cedilla. Both forms of the letter may be found in a single document written in a single language, e.g. Romanian or Turkish.

In ISO/IEC 8859-2 only a single (8-bit) coded character is provided, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CEDILLA, which maps to 015E in ISO/IEC 10646 by default, and may map by mutual agreement, between sender and receiver, to this letter with comma below. See ISO/IEC 8859-2 for further information on the use of that standard.

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A similar note will be included for the following characters:
0219 LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH COMMA BELOW,
021A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH COMMA BELOW, and
021B LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH COMMA BELOW.