L2/99-260R

Approved Minutes of the UTC 81 / L2 178 Joint Meeting

Mission Viejo, CA -- October 26-29, 1999

February 7, 2000



Number of members in good standing as of this meeting: 16, Quorum: 8.

PRESENT: Apple Computer, Inc. (by proxy); Compaq Computer Corporation; Hewlett-Packard Company; IBM Corporation;  Microsoft Corporation; NCR Corporation; The Research Libraries Group, Inc.; Reuters, Ltd (by proxy); Sybase, Inc.; Unisys Corporation, Xerox Corporation (by proxy).

NOT PRESENT: Booz, Allen, Hamilton, Inc.;  Justsystem Corporation; Oracle, Inc.; SAP AG, Sun Microsystems

Total members represented: 10, Total not represented: 6

UTC 80/L2 177 Minutes

[81-M1] Motion: Approve the minutes of UTC 80/L2 177 without modification. [L2/99-176] 
Moved by Mike Ksar, seconded by Arnold Winkler 

9 for, 0 against, 1 abstain (NCR) 

Review of Action Items
Action Item 81-1 for Officers: Develop a policy on patents and inform the UTC.
WG2 Report
Action Item 81-2 for Mike Ksar: Pursue with the ISO secretariat that when 10646-1 first edition plus amendments is posted on the web to also include a notice that it has been superseded by the second edition.
Unicode V 3 Status Report
Action Item 81-3 for Joan Aliprand: Check the NISO spine standard for their guidelines for published book.
Character Encoding Model
Action Item 81-4 for Mark Davis/Ken Whistler:  Incorporate the feedback received on Draft Unicode Technical Report #17, Character Encoding Model.
Regular Expressions
[81-M2] Motion: The UTC resolves that the general category field in the UnicodeData.txt file is limited to only those categories documented in UnicodeData.3.0.0.htm.
Moved by Ken Whistler, seconded by Mark Davis 

9 for, 0 against, 1 abstain (Apple)

[81-M3] Motion: Advance Draft Unicode Technical Report #18, Regular Expressions Guidelines, to Unicode Technical Report #18, Regular Expressions Guidelines. [UTC/1999-030]
7 for, 1 against (Apple), 2 abstain (Compaq, Reuters)
Action Item 81-5 for Mark Davis: Solicit feedback from Mark Leisher and Keld Simonsen on Unicode Technical Report #18, Regular Expressions Guidelines, and incorporate feedback received at the meeting, including adding a reference section.

Action Item 81-6 for Ken Whistler: Update the Unicode Version 3 reference for Unicode Technical Report #18, Regular Expressions Guidelines.

UTF-32
[81-M4] Motion: Unicode and L2 to make a contribution to SC2/WG2 to re-examine and redefine the UCS-4 encoding space to include only the first seventeen planes of ISO/IEC 10646. 
Moved by Mike Ksar, seconded by Mark Davis

9 for, 0 against, 1 abstain (Reuters) 

Action Item 81-7 for Mark Davis: Draft a technical corrigendum to redefine the UCS-4   encoding space to include only the first 17 planes of 10646, and work with Uma and Mike Ksar to process.

Action Item 81-8 for Mark Davis:  Update Draft Unicode Technical Report #19,           Interoperable 32-bit Serialization to remove serialization and change to describe as a useful alias for a subset of UCS-4.

UTC Membership Roll Call Adjustment

PRESENT: Oracle, Inc. (by proxy); Xerox Corporation (by proxy) now present.

Total members represented: 12, Total not represented: 4

Unicode Mapping Tables

[81-M5] Motion: Use [UTC/1999-034] as the basis for Proposed Draft Unicode Technical Report #22 Unicode Character Mapping Formats and: 
Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Murray Sargent 

8 for, 0 against, 4 abstain (Apple, HP, Oracle, Xerox)

Action Item 81-9 for Mark Davis: Give Kent Karlsson feedback on his index to Unicode
mapping tables: remove personal comments, needs to be complete, and UTC would like to review at next meeting.

Action Item 81-10 for Mark Davis: Update L2/99-326 (Unicode Character Mapping Formats): deleting the sections on fallback characters and delta mappings and make the document a readme for the mapping tables for the Unicode 3.0 CD.

Action Item 81-11 for Lisa Moore: Put out a notice on Unicore for members to check their mapping tables and update them by year end.
 

Unicode in Markup Languages
[81-M6] Motion: Add a zero width word joiner to Unicode at the suggested location of U+2060, with the suggested name of ZERO WIDTH WORD JOINER, with the semantics to be the same as currently defined for ZERO WIDTH NONBREAK SPACE minus the BOM properties, and make the recommendation to deprecate the use of the BOM (U+FEFF) as a ZERO WIDTH WORD JOINER. 
Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Mike Ksar 

8 for, 0 against, 4 abstain (Apple, Oracle, Reuters, Xerox)

Action Item 81-12 for Mark Davis: Write up a WG2 character encoding proposal for the        ZERO WIDTH WORD JOINER and forward to WG2.  Document in the proposal the rationale for adding this character.  The proposed glyph will be a dotted square with ZWWJ inside.

Action Item 81-13 for Ken Whistler: Add the ZERO WIDTH WORD JOINER to the pipeline document on the web.

Action Item 81-14 for Mark Davis: Relay feedback on Proposed Draft Unicode            Technical Report #20, The Use of Unicode in Markup Languages to the other co-authors.

Case Mappings
Action Item 81-15 for Umamaheswaran: Investigate with Baldev Soor if a technical paper       (documenting how future POSIX locale structures can handle special case mappings) can be written in time for the Nov. 8, 1999, WG20 meeting.

[81-M7] Motion:Advance Draft Unicode Technical Report #21, Case Mappings, to Unicode Technical Report #21, Case Mappings. [UTC/1999-028]

Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Ken Whistler 

7 for, 1 against (Apple), 4 abstain (HP, NCR, Reuters, Xerox) 

Action Item 81-16 for Mark Davis: Update Unicode Technical Report #21, Case Mappings with feedback received during the meeting.

Action Item 81-17 for Ken Whistler Update the Unicode Version 3 reference for Unicode Technical Report #21, Case Mappings.

SCSU Signature
Action Item 81-18 for Mark Davis: Ask Markus Scherer to update his proposal for a       signature for SCSU to give more background and to provide the exact text that is proposed for Unicode Technical Report #6, Standard Compression Scheme for Unicode.
SC22 Chair
[81-M8] Vote: Joint vote on the chair of SC22, Roger or Rex.
Moved by  Ken Whistler, seconded by Mark Davis

Roger     4
Rex        3
Neither    5

[81-M9] Vote: Acceptance vote on the chair of SC22, Roger or Rex.
Moved by  Ken Whistler, seconded by Gary Roberts

Roger     5
Rex        6
Neither    4 (Apple, Oracle, Reuters, Xerox)

ISO 8859-7 and Greek Semicolon Character
Action Item 81-19 for Arnold Winkler: Send a message to the members of SC2 urging members to ask the editor of ISO 8859-7 to accommodate the US comments due to potential severe implementation issues. Lisa and Michel will help to draft the text.
ISO/IEC 10646-2 Working Draft
Consensus 81-C1: Alternate format characters that would be better rendered with visible fallback representation by unaware implementations should be allocated with the respective symbol sets or scripts. Alternate format characters that would be better rendered invisibly by unaware implementations should be allocated in one of the three reserved areas for alternate format characters: 2062..2069, FFF0..FFF8, E0000..E0FFF. For example:
  • The formatting characters for Western Music Symbols should be represented by a fallback character if they cannot be interpreted, as not being able to interpret the format characters would render the remaining music symbol characters difficult to layout in a comprehensible manner.
  • The proposed ideographic variation tags are good candidates for not having a visible representation as the base ideographic will still be recognizable by all who read ideographs.
Action Item 81-20 for Joan Aliprand: Check on the typical method of representing Western     music symbol names.

Action Item 81-21 for Michel Suignard: Solicit input on correctness of Western music symbol glyphs that are currently used in 10646 Part 2.

Math Brace Characters
[81-M10] Motion: Accept the twenty five Math brace pieces characters, as described in L2/99-346, with the recommended code positions: 239B..23B2.
Moved by Mike Ksar, seconded by Murray Sargent

8 for, 1 against (Apple), 3 abstain (Oracle, Reuters, Xerox)

Action Item 81-22 for Murray Sargent: Update the Math Brace Pieces Proposal and give to Arnold Winkler to send on to WG2.

Action Item 81-23 for Ken Whistler:Add the Math Brace Pieces proposal characters to the pipeline document on the web.

Math and Technical Symbols
Consensus  81-C2: The variant forms given in the table on pages 21 and 22 of L2/99-244R are glyph variants and to the best of our knowledge are not semantically different.

[81-M11] Motion: Do not encode the glyph variants of symbols and defer the question of the math variant tag to a unified discussion of glyph variant tags including CJK. [L2/99-244R]

Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Gary Roberts

7 for, 0 against, 5 abstain (Apple, HP, Oracle, Reuters, Xerox)

Action Item 81-24 for Ken Whistler: Relay feedback to Barbara Beeton about the unifications of glyph variants.
Math Alphabetic Characters
[80-M12] Failed Motion: Replace the proposal encoded in L2/99-195 and L2/99-199 that gives enumerated math alphabets with a variant tag mechanism as discussed during this meeting (a revision of L2/99-045):
  • Use 16 variant tags
  • Have a specific list of the results of applying the tags
  • Limit the tags to a specific set of characters, Future combinations are reserved, and require action by the committee
  • No distinction within combining character sequences (CC=0)

  • Moved by Mark Davis (on behalf of Apple), seconded by Gary Roberts

    4 for, 5 against (Sybase, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Unisys), 3 abstain (Oracle, Reuters, Xerox)  Motion failed

The proposal given in the failed motion will be kept as a fall-back proposal, to be put forward  if the current Math Alphabets receive negative comments during 10646 Part 2 balloting.
Math and Technical Symbols
Consensus  81-C3: The Math and Technical Symbol proposal [L2/99-244R] needs the following modifications:
  • Remove the slash negation characters from the proposal
  • Don't encode glyph variants as separate characters but keep them in the variant tag table
  • Represent the horizontal bar negation by a combining slash (U+0338) followed by a variant tag
Action Item 81-25 for Ken Whistler: Relay feedback to Barbara Beeton about using variant tags in the Math and Technical Symbol proposal.
JCS Proposals
Fifty Six Kanji Compatibility Characters

[81-M13] Motion: Because the UTC had originally proposed the addition of the 56 Kanji compatibility characters during the development of the URO, the UTC now supports the addition of the 56 Kanji characters and will relay this position to the IRG.  We also support the proposed code positions given in L2/99-313.  In addition, we request the submitter to supply the compatibility mappings that are required for the Unicode Standard.

Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Murray Sargent

8 for, 2 against (Sybase, Xerox), 2 abstain (Oracle, Reuters) 

Action Item 81-26 for Lisa Moore: Write the UTC response on the proposal L2/99-310 to      encode 56 Kanji compatibility characters to Shibano-san, copying the IRG and WG2.

Action Item 81-27 for Lisa Moore: Inform the Unicode IRG and WG2 liaisons of the UTC      position on proposal L2/99-310 to encode 56 Kanji characters.

Action Item 81-28 for Ken Whistler: Add the 56 compatibility ideographs to the pipeline     document on the web.

Seven Hiragana Characters and Twenty Five Katakana Characters

[81-M14] Motion: The UTC provisionally accepts the two small Hiragana forms at 3095..3096, and the sixteen small Katakana forms at 31F0..31FF. [L2/99-238]

Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Uma Umamaheswaran

8 for, 2 against (Sybase, Xerox), 2 abstain (Oracle, Reuters) 

Action Item 81-29 for Lisa Moore: Inform Shibano-san that the UTC provisionally accepts the   two small Hiragana forms and the sixteen small Katakana, and that the five Hiragana semi-voiced and nine Katakana semi-voiced proposed characters are already representable (provide the list).

Forty Enclosed Numbers

Consensus 81-C4: The UTC needs to discuss in the future a general mechanism for applying a mark to a sequence of characters which will address the JCS proposal for additional circled numbers.

Action Item 81-30 for Lisa Moore: Inform Shibano-san that the UTC will be discussing a        method of representing circled numbers.

Sixteen Publishing Characters

[81-M15] Motion: The UTC provisionally accepts the two shogi characters, the arrow, and the double question mark at the suggested locations and will communicate to the proposer our comments and questions on the remaining publishing characters in the proposal. [L2/99-238]

Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Uma Umamaheswaran

8 for, 2 against (Apple, Xerox), 2 abstain (Oracle, Reuters) 

Action Item 81-31 for Ken Whistler: Add the two shogi piece characters, the open arrow, and  the double question mark to the pipeline document on the web.

Action Item 81-32 for Lisa Moore: Inform Shibano-san of the UTCs provisional acceptance of  the four characters, and provide our feedback on the other unaccepted characters (need more information on usage and if any are used for emphasis or as combining characters).

Twenty Seven Dentist Characters

Consensus  81-C5: The circled characters will considered as part of a general mechanism as documented in  81-C4. Respond to the Shibano-san on the remaining proposed dentist symbols that we need evidence of usage.  The UTC is not accepting any of the dentist symbols at this time. [L2/99-238]

Action Item 81-33 for Lisa Moore: Inform Shibano-san that we are not accepting any of the dentist symbol characters, and provide our feedback.

Fourteen Linguistic Education Characters

Consensus  81-C6: Respond to Shibano-san with the UTC comments on the linguistic educational characters (nine accented IPA and 2 tone symbols are already represented, linking mark is omitted from later version of the proposal, the two arrows will be added to the math proposal which is in progress).  [L2/99-238]

Action Item 81-34 for Lisa Moore: Inform Shibano-san of our comments on the educational letters and symbols, including a list of how to represent the IPA and tone symbols.

Action Item 81-35 for Ken Whistler: Work with Barbara Beeton to add the two arrow       characters to the STIX proposal.

313 New Kanji Characters

Consensus  81-C7: Respond to Shibano-san with the UTC comments on the 313 proposed Kanji (many radicals are already encoded, there are glyph variants of unified characters, are they in extension B already?, if not, must be proposed to the IRG ).  [L2/99-310]

Action Item 81-36 for Lisa Moore: Inform Shibano-san of the UTC's responses to proposal   L2/99-310 to encode 313 Kanji characters.

Action Item 81-37 for Lisa Moore: Work with John Jenkins to have Cora check the latest        level (9) of Super CJK to determine if the 313 proposed Kanji are already included by the IRG.

Newly Published JIS X 0213 Standard

Consensus  81-C8: JIS X 0213 publishes character mappings to unassigned Unicode characters.  These mappings are invalid and use of them is not conformant to the Unicode Standard or to ISO/IEC 10646.

Action Item 81-38 for Mark Davis: After working with Japanese encoding experts to verify the JIS X 0213 mappings, send a note to Unicore and Unicode expressing the UTC consensus that the recently published JIS X 0213 mappings to unassigned Unicode characters are invalid.

Action Item 81-39 for Lisa Moore: Inform Shibano-san of the same message regarding the JIS  X 0213 mappings to unassigned Unicode characters.

Instructions to L2 Liaison
[81-M16] Motion: The UTC instructs its L2 Liaison to vote yes with no comments on all ballots except L2/99-308, which will be yes with comments that the code charts should reflect the FPDAM ballot.
Moved by Mark Davis, seconded by Mike Ksar

11 for, 0 against, 1 abstain (NCR)

UTC Membership Roll Call Adjustment

 NOT PRESENT: Unisys Corporation, Oracle, Inc. no longer present.

 Total members represented: 10; Total not represented: 6

Morpheme Break Character

Action Item 81-40 for Mark Davis: Write up a proposal for a Morpheme Break Character which addresses its potential uses (a hint in rendering, a di- or trigraph break, an indication of grapheme boundaries) and distinguishes it from joiners and non joiners, and distribute the proposal for comments before the next UTC.
Lithuanian Precomposed Characters
Action Item 81-41 for Mark Davis: Write up a document which covers the implications of      encoding precomposed characters post Unicode 3.0, and provide lists of how to correctly represent Lithuanian and Slovak accented characters.  Post to Unicore for review.
Action Item 81-42 for Lisa Moore: Add discussion of a collection ID for all UTF-16 accessible  characters to the agenda for UTC 82.