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Please see email from Michael below.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Everson [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 21 July 2011 00:16
To: Debbie Garside
Subject: Re: ISO-639 code 'www'

Debbie,

My e-mail is acting up and apparently I can't get this sent to the JAC. I
don't know why. It keeps saying i'm sending from Gmail when I am not.

Please forward this to the JAC for me:

Deprecating this code is a VERY GOOD IDEA. Please do it.

I doubt very much any existing users of the code will be greatly
inconvenienced. The Wawa language has 3,000 speakers.

Arguments about "code space" are red-herrings. Wikipedia's implementation of
language tags in (X)XX.wikipedia.org is important, and the crash between
"www" and "www" is not insignificant. It is NOT a different code space. 

Peter's example "ftp://" is not relevant, any more than "www://" would be.
That is not the problematic usage environment. This is:

en.wikipedia.org
is.wikipedia.org
vo.wikipedia.org
gsm.wikipedia.org
..
www.wikipedia.org

Basically, this just prevents a Wawa Wikipedia from using the 639 code. To
what benefit? To the benefit of the Wawa? I hardly think so. 

The Wikimedia Foundation and its Language Committee have tried to respect
and to use 639 quite rigorously. They've identified a problem and I don't
think it should be dismissed. And I think it might be reasonable to reserve
"ftp" as well. 


On 20 Jul 2011, at 23:57, Debbie Garside wrote:

> I think Peter is right.  It is a different code space and would open a can
of worms.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Peter Constable
> Sent: 20 July 2011 23:45
> 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
> 
> 
> 
>  --- the forwarded message follows ---

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/