Good points, Peter. We also should stick with our principle not to change codes.

Rebecca

-----Original Message-----
From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Constable
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 6:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ISO-639 code 'www'

I'm reluctant to take this change. It is based on a poor design in consuming applications or protocols in not isolating language identifiers from other pieces of information. For instance, one could equally imagine someone asking for a change to the alpha-2 ID for Catalan because some application or protocol has a conflict between "ca" for Catalan vs. "ca" for Canada. In the IETF discussion, there was a suggestion that perhaps "ftp" should also be permanently reserved in ISO 639. To me, this is not sensible.

Wrt lables like "ftp", when used in "ftp://", those are protocol identifiers that never interact with language identifiers. There is absolutely no basis in this case to claim collision with ISO 639.

Wrt the Internet domain name system (including internationalized domain names), there is nothing inherent to the domain name system that points to requirements being placed on ISO 639. Top level domains names are controlled by ICANN and will never collide with ISO 639 IDs. Registered domain identifiers that fall under a top-level domain are basically at the discretion of the registrant (subject to availability, of course); these should never be used in conflict with ISO 639, and if anybody tried to make such a claim it would not be supported by ICANN. Deeper level domain IDs, including "www", are entirely at the discretion of the individual registered-domain owner; someone could design their naming conventions to conflict with any number of ISO 639 IDs (or ISO 3166, or ...), but IMO we should not ever accommodate such requests.


Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Guenther, Rebecca
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 1:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ISO-639 code 'www'

We say that we only deprecate a code for compelling reasons. This may be a compelling reason, however. Plus the language code probably isn't that frequently used.

Rebecca

-----Original Message-----
From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of ISO639-3
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 3:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fwd: ISO-639 code 'www'

Dear ISO Committee members,

This request came to me a bit earlier in the spring. I put it out to the IETF and received varying replies. I am hesitant to deprecate a code for practical reasons which have nothing to do with language encoding, but would like to hear your input.

Melinda Lyons
ISO639-3 RA
SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd.
Dallas, TX 75236



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