Agreed. I actually learned quite a bit from the discussion. Thanks to the
many who posted informative posts.
I also never mean to question the commitment of anyone here to Unicode.
Remember this all started with an innocent question that had after it "no
flames please"... :-)
Chris Pratley
Group Program Manager
Microsoft Word
-----Original Message-----
From: Frank da Cruz [mailto:fdc@columbia.edu]
Sent: March 29, 2000 3:22 PM
To: Unicode List
Cc: unicode@unicode.org
Subject: RE: DEC multilingual code page, ISO 8859-1, etc.
Chris Pratley wrote:
> Frank, may I suggest you either put down the enormous weight of that chip
> on your shoulder, or submit this theory to the Weekly World News? We are
> all trying to get Unicode implemented here, so the constant implication of
> evil intentions gets a little tiresome after awhile.
>
I agree. And pointless too. CP1252 is everywhere; Microsoft has indeed
"created a fact". But I'm not here to indict Microsoft. I'm here to stick
up for standards, such as the one all of us are working on together.
I'm happy if this discussion has given pause to any readers who honestly did
not even KNOW that CP1252 was NOT a standard, or that there might be
anything
wrong with putting it -- or any other private character set (or document
format, etc) -- on the Internet.
> Ironically, for some reason it is from the Unix user group from which we
> have to take the most guff.
>
Like me? I'm a Windows developer! But I develop software for Windows that
accesses non-Windows platforms such as Unix, VMS, VOS, and IBM mainframes
using open, standard methods and formats such as ISO 2022, ISO 8859, and
UTF8 (not to mention TCP/IP and Kerberos).
The Unix group, by and large, is just as committed to UTF8 as Microsoft and
Apple, but doesn't have the same resources or degree of organization.
Perhaps more to the point, it has to spend inordinate amounts of time on
detours to accommodate PC code pages all over the Internet instead of moving
straight ahead to Unicode.
In other words, it's not the "Unix group" complaining. It's the "open
standards, diverse platforms, interoperability group".
But yes, I think we've all made our points three times over, so let's get
back to making Unicode.
- Frank
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