My only concern regarding the PUA would be in the event that
major software developers promote some standard use of PUA
characters and have that lead to software implementations which
assume certain definitions of the PUA, meaning that users with
particular (different) PUA needs encounter interoperability
problems when using that software.
If it can be guaranteed that software will always make no
assumptions about PUA-encoded characters, there's no problem.
But who can guarantee such a thing? Adobe has recommended to
others that all presentation forms be encoded (using the PUA
where not otherwise encoded), and apparently have made some of
their assignments match those used by others like HP; Bitstream
have indicated that they will use the same assignments as
Adobe. We've heard that current work on Omega has gone this
direction. I only worry that there's a trend unfolding that
could lead to interoperability problems.
Peter
From: <paulde@microsoft.com> AT Internet on 02/22/2000 11:51 AM
Received on: 02/22/2000
To: Peter Constable/IntlAdmin/WCT, <unicode@unicode.org> AT
Internet@Ccmail
cc:
Subject: Re: PUA
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James E. Agenbroad [mailto:jage@loc.gov]
...
> Using the PUA for glyphs sems contrary to the our basic
> premises, but can
> we prevent consenting users from doing so? It seems
> contradictory to say.
> "Use these codes any way you wish" but "Don't use them for
> X". We could
> specify some likely undesirable outcomes of proposed PUA
> usages and hope
> they will heed the warning.
Anyone can use the PUA for anything they want to. If it's
useful for managing glyphs for some purpose, then why not? It
should be a free arena. All bets are off as to the meaning of
data in this area in plain text. The standard shouldn't
restrict it's use in any way, other than the conformance
clauses that are already there.
--- Paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:59 EDT