L2/02-063

Subject/Title: Minutes of the 19th plenary of CEN/TC304 in December 2001

Source: Secretary of TC304

Date: 1 February 2002

Note/Action: To be adopted by the next plenary of TC304

The meeting took place 3 December in the CEN-meeting center in Brussels according to an invitation and an agenda proposed in document N994.

Wolf Arfvidson welcomed the delegates and informed the meeting on the situation with the secretariat of CEN/TC304. He said that Icelandic Standard was under obligation to support the secretariat until April 2002 but no CEN standard body had yet volunteered to continue its operation after that. There was however some discussion with an affiliated member of CEN on the subject.

The following delegations were present at the plenary.

Norway: Keld Jørn Simonsen.

Germany: Paul Dettmer hod, Marc Wilhelm Küster

Ireland: present through a proxy to Finland

Finland: Erkki Kolehmainen,

Sweden: Monica Ståhl Forsberg

Poland: Elzibieta Broma-Wrzesien

Netherlands: Johan van Wingen

From CEN/ISSS: James Boyd

From ETSI HF by a special invitation from the chairman: Knut Nordby

Chair: Wolf Arfvidson

Secretary: Þorgeir Sigurðsson

The agenda in N994 was adopted with some clarifications reflected in the minutes. Agenda item 9, 11 and 12 were not discussed separately due to time-limitations, but much of their content was mentioned under other agenda items. In the minutes the resolutions have for convenience been placed under the corresponding agenda item, even if they were passed separately at the end of the meeting under agenda item 13. Agenda Item 10 on MES-3 has been placed under agenda item 7 j).

The secretary, Keld Simonsen, Marc Küster and Erkki Kolehmainen volunteered to be on the resolution drafting committee.

The minutes of the last meeting were adopted with the note that the terms of reference for the Cultural Diversity Steering Group had not been distributed yet as promised in the minutes.

Information was given on the work of the Steering Group on Cultural Adaptability (CDSG) that has been established as an offspring of the PWC report (see N966, N971 and N976). Marc Küster had been elected chair of the group.

The purpose of the Cultural Diversity Steering Group (CDSG) is to review and recommend the subject areas that Europeans should work on in terms of stadardization in support of cultural diversity, what goals should be set for this work and where (i.e., in which fora e.g., CEN/ISO/W3C/IETF... it should take place. The group has three delegates from TC304, Wolf Arfvidson the chair, Erkki Kolehmainen the Finnish delegate and Marc Küster from Germany. It also has delegates from the CEN Electronic Commerce Workshop (Man-Sze Li and Catherine Chen), ICTSB (Knut Nordby of ETSI HF), ISO/IEC JTC1 CLAUI (Yves Neuville of SC35) and an observer representing the European Commission (EC) DG Enterprise (Cesar Santos was present) and delegates/observers from CEN/WS MMI/DC (Ian Campbell Grant), CEN/WS LT (Eric Duval),CEN/ISSS Forum (Jan Rietveld was present), ANEC (Gottlobe Fabisch), EFTA (Jóhannes Þorsteinsson), LISA and UNICODE (Asmus Freytag). .

The production of awareness material and the need for producing an overview of current standard activities was discussed. Knut Nordby (ETSI HF) said that other bodies needed to be signaled. In response to this, Marc Küster and others named a number of relevant organisations that had already been approached (ANEC, LISA, UNICODE).

The purpose of the CDSG and its relation to TC304 was discussed. The Netherlands (Johan van Wingen) wanted to know what the formal relation of CEN National Standard Bodies was to the CDSG and complained about the lack of formal documents. He said that he had not seen the final PWC report and he wanted a follow-up of TC304 responses to the report.

The Chair (Wolf Arfvidson) replied and said that the draft final report N966 is the final report, there had not been any new material added. (N979 is our follow-up as well as our participation in the CDSG). Erkki Kolehmainen (Finland) added that the Steering group had taken a decision to use the web site of CEN/ISSS for distributing material and information. He said the Steering Group did not work under the auspices of TC304.

Norway (Keld Simonsen) asked how the representatives of TC304 in the Steering group had been selected and asked further how they could represent TC304 interests. The chair said in response that he had nominated the people to represent TC304 as was said at the preceding TC304 meeting. (Proposals had been invited). Keld Simonsen said that this process was not under control of the TC and thus not accountable.

Under this agenda item, a cooperation with ETSI was discussed on the placement and ordering of letters on GSM phones. Knut Nordby from ETSI HF explained the situation in ETSI where a group, financed by the EC, as part of the eEurope-initiative was being set up to deal with the issue. He stated that there was a clear need for harmonising standards and meeting national requirements. He took as an example the letter 'å' that was ordered differently by Scandinavian countries.

In response, Marc Küster told of the current IT situation with respect to adaptability of culturally dependent ordering of letters and said that there was a widely accepted mechanism in ISO for allowing different ordering rules. Keld Simonsen adviced on adaptability of the approach taken. He also pointed at ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG20 ordering templates and tailoring available at the Cultural registry. Johan van Wingen warned on the complexity of the issues. Erkki Kolehmainen asked for a time-frame for the task and Knut Nordby said it was one and a half year. The Chair asked on how TC304 and ETSI might organise their co-operation and who would be in the lead of it. Knut Nordby said ETSI would be in the lead but welcomed a liaison with TC304. Erkki Kolehmainen said these issues were so important that the CDSG should also take them up.

Knut Nordby stated a warning that if the process of harmonizing international IC and IT standard looked as being delayed, ETSI might implement a faster European agreement. The information was given that Karl Ivar Larsson, one of TC304 main experts, would probably be contracted as an expert on character set issues by the ETSI group. Wolf Arfvidson proposed that another liaison officer would also be assigned from TC304 and proposed Marc Küster for this.

There was some discussion if there was a need for another liaison in addition to Karl Ivar Larsson. A resolution was however drafted and later adopted unanimously:

Resolution #1: TC-liaison-officer to ETSI-HF

CEN/TC304 appoints Marc Küster as a liaison officer to ETSI HF. The TC also wishes the Cultural Diversity Steering Group to take up the monitoring of harmonizing IC with IT standards.

Adopted unanimously

Keld Simonsen distributed a document to the delegates (N1003) with information on relevant ISO matters.

The possible disbandment of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG20 and a vote for it was discussed. Arnold Winkler had announced his withdrawal as the WGs convenor. The Netherlands stated that they would vote Yes for disbanding WG20.

The situation on the ordering project EOR-2 was discussed. The voting on the EOR-2 draft as a CEN report was expected to end 12. December. A relevant amendment to 10646 was not yet approved and EOR-2 should be corrected. Marc Küster (Germany) volunteered to translate the report into an EN with a new Project team. Erkki Kolehmainen (Finland) supported Marc Küster in this. Keld Simonsen (Norway) said he did not like any open-ended specifications. He said he was however interested in co-operation on the draft and said that there was not a need for a formal Project Team. He asked what to do with comments in this voting round. Marc replied that they would serve as input to the new EN. Johan van Wingen (Netherlands) said that working further on this would only result in loss of time and money and he was against any standardisation based on MESs.

A resolution was drafted and later voted on.

Resolution # 2: Project Team for EOR-2 EN

CEN/TC304 resolves, conditional on the adoption of the CR on EOR-2, to set up a project team with Marc Küster as the editor and additional initial members, Keld Simonsen and Kent Karlsson, to draft a prEN to update both the EOR-2 CR and the EOR-1 ENV.

This resolution was adopted with a majority voting for it:

The Netherlands voted No

Finland, Germany, Norway Sweden, Ireland voted Yes

The status of the Fallback project was reviewed. It was being processed by CEN with a short additional text into a CEN Report now changed into a CEN Technical Report. Voting by the CEN BT was expected to start in December and it was no need for any TC resolution.

The situation on ESR-1 and ESR- 2 was discussed. The project had been given to a CEN Workshop and a CWA 14094 was produced. The TC304 secretary said that he had made SC22 WG20 aware of this CWA that TC304 wished to serve as input into the revision of its cultural registry standard. There was however no work being done or planned in TC304 on it, but a Work Item was still assigned to it in the CEN databases that could only be removed by a TC resolution:

Resolution # 3 ESR WI deletion

CEN/TC304 resolves that producing a CWA 14094 for the ESR is sufficient and the WI of processing ESR-1 into a CR is to be deleted as well as the WI to produce ESR-2.

Adopted unanimously

The following resolution was passed because CEN no longer supported the ENV type deliverable that TC304 had previously decided to produce instead of EN1923.

Resolution # 4 ENV1923 to become a TS

CEN/TC304 resolves that since the ENV deliverable is no longer supported by the CEN standard system, a TS (Technical specification) should be produced instead.

This resolution was adopted with a majority voting for it:

The Netherlands and Ireland abstained

Germany, Norway Sweden, Finland voted Yes.

There was a discussion on the problems associated with populating the two Cultural Registries (ISO and CEN).

A report meant to help National Standard Bodies do the necessary registrations was presented (N1002). The following resolution was adopted

Resolution # 5 Guidance to help populating the Cultural Registry

CEN/TC304 thanks Monica Ståhl Forsberg for delivering document CEN/TC304 N1002 containing guidance to help European NBs prepare cultural information for registration. CEN/TC304 wishes this guidance to be forwarded to those NBs that submitted data on cultural IT information for the registration but have not yet produced a formal registration.

Adopted unanimously

The secretary had on behalf of TC304 sent for registration the content of the Eurolocale CWA. The comments received during the registration process were presented in documents N996, N997 and N998. Most serious in these comments was the implication that Part 2 and Part 1 were not harmonious but Part 2 is (and should be) an editorial implementation of Part 1.

Resolution #6 Resolving Eurolocale comments

CEN/TC304 instructs the editor of the Eurolocale specification Keld Simonsen, together with Erkki Kolehmainen to resolve the comments on the Eurolocale project (see documents N996, N997 and N998) and to initiate all necessary communication with SC22 and its WG 20.

Adopted unanimously

The secretary explained that the previous decision of Tc304 to convert the part 1 of the Eurolocale CWA an ENV had not been carried out yet, because the registration of the Eurolocale specification in ISO/IEC SC22 had not taken place. A discussion on the possibility that SC22 would want to change the content of a European specification that TC304 wanted to register led to the following resolution:

Resolution # 7 Cultural specifications

CEN/TC304 would like to inform SC22 that SC22 should only comment on but not change cultural specifications sent in by CEN/TC304.

This resolution was adopted with a majority voting for it:

Netherlands abstained.

The other five countries voted for it.

The Netherlands said they could not see what impact this resolution would have and therefore abstained.

The latest report on the OCR-B testing is in N982. The chairman remarked that no final report had been received. The secretary said that a final report was not strictly needed as N982 was already adopted as final deliverable and it was up to the editor to decide if the other purpose of the report was fulfilled, that is to serve as input for the OCR-B standard. (Karl Ivar Larsson is the editor of both the OCR-B testing and OCR-B standards).

Erkki Kolehmaine proposed that because of the above agenda item, only the Euro-sign should be added to the repertoire of the OCR-B standard and other letters moved into an informative annex. It was explained that it was already so in the document N992.

A decision was needed to change the intended work into either a TS or an EN since the ENV type was no longer supported. The editor (Karl Ivar Larsson) had proposed that it should be an EN and the following resolution was passed.

Resolution # 8 OCR-B WI

CEN/TC304 resolves to advance document N992 into an EN and instructs its secretary to forward it to the CEN CMC for this purpose.

Adopted unanimously

The situation on the MES-3 registration in the Appendix of the ISO/IEC JTC1 10646 standard was discussed. The application had not been accepted by JTC1 SC2 because of changes made to it (see resolution in the last plenary of TC304). Proposals for what to do next were discussed. Objections were raised by the Netherlands and also by Germany that the issue was not worth any effort.

A discussion raised by document N1001 by dr Umamaheswaran (not present) led to the following resolution:

Resolution # 9 MES-3 in 10646

CEN/TC304 resolves to suggest to SC2/WG2 that MES- 3A and MES-3B not be incorporated in the Annex of 10646 as such. Instead if incorporated they should be replaced by just one open collection, the "Modern European Scripts" (MES-Open), that reflects the scope of the CEN WS MES that produced MES-3A and MES-3B as part of the CEN Workshop Agreement 13873:2000.

The resolution was adopted with a majority voting for it

Norway and Netherlands abstained

Finland, Ireland, Germany, Sweden voted in favour of it

The Netherlands stated that they were in favour of the first sentence, but against the MES-Open and had therefore to abstain.

Document N995 contained a proposal from Sweden for a new work item on support for Sami languages in data processing. Monica Ståhl Forsberg explained that one reason for the need for this WI was a new national legislation that gives the Sami people increased rights to use their language with its special Sami characters in contacts with public authorities.

Resolution #10 SAMI WI

CEN/TC304 resolves to start a new work item to produce an EN for the support in IT of Sami languages as spoken in Norway, Sweden and Finland and the Romani language as spoken in Finland. The draft, once verified by appropriate authorities in the Nordic countries, may be forwarded by the chair and secretary for a ballot.

The resolution was adopted with a majority voting for it

The Netherlands voted against it

Finland, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Sweden voted for it

Resolution #11 Thanks to host

CEN/TC304 wishes to thank James Boyd of CEN/ISSS for participating in the TC304 plenary meeting and for use of the facilities at the CEN meeting centre.

Acclamation

Since the future secretariat of TC304 was not secured the next meeting date could not be committed to otherwise than by a recommendation.

Resolution #12 Next meeting

CEN/TC304 recommends that the next meeting of TC304 is convened in June or September 2002 in Brussels.

Adopted unanimously