From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Thu Mar 02 2006 - 15:18:47 CST
Philippe,
> Apparently those Japanese pages (linked from the http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/
> home page, which is the current website for ISO/IEC - JTC1/SC2) were not
> updated since 2004-10-07.
This is incorrect. Those are active servlet pages hosted directly on
the ITSCJ site in Japan. The error is simply a misplaced field in
the database, rather than a failure to update static pages.
> Diyou try to write to the Secretariat?
I have done so, to get the error corrected at its source.
>
> It seems that all work in JTC1/SC2 (coded character sets) has
> been stalled since 2004, the last published standard being
> ISO 10646:2003 published at end of 2003.
This is false. SC2/WG2 meets regularly on a twice-annual basis,
and has a very full agenda at every meeting. The next SC2 plenary itself
is scheduled for April at the Mountain View, CA, USA meeting.
Amd 1 and Amd 2 to ISO 10646:2003 have been published since 2003.
>
> Does it mean that all international work on 8-bit coded charsets
> is now terminated,
Actually, what you are referring to is SC2/WG3, which was the working
group responsible for 8-bit coded character sets. That working group
has been shut down, as SC2 (correctly) determined that it should
focus all future work on the maintenance and extension of ISO/IEC 10646,
and that it was not in the interest of implementers, NB's or JTC1 to
be developing more 8-bit character encoding standards in the ISO 8859
series of parts.
> and now performed only at national level for those countries that
> would still need a 8-bit charset (including for example India
> for other Brahmic scripts which could be handled by adding more
> mappings in ISCII), given a recommandation that now all new
> 8-bit charsets should be defined with a strict mapping in reference
> to ISO-10646 ...
National bodies have to determine for themselves what are their
appropriate national standardization needs. However, it should
be pretty clear where the trends in international IT
development are headed, and there is little practical value
in national bodies attempting to promulgate more 8-bit
character encoding standards at this point. Certainly there is
little apparent value for India in attempting to directly
extend ISCII to more Brahmi-based scripts of India. It is a
matter of diminishing returns at this point, given the fact that
effective Unicode-based solutions are starting to come online,
both on Windows and Linux platforms in India.
--Ken
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