From: Erkki I. Kolehmainen (eik@iki.fi)
Date: Mon Jan 05 2009 - 08:03:39 CST
Comments on two specific points:
The EURO SIGN was not at all undisputed at the time when it was introduced
to the standardization process, since a lot of purist techies felt that the
currency codes would be all that's needed in this day and age. Furthermore,
it had been originally defined by the European Union as an extremely strict
logo intended for use as illustration only (e.g., in the banknotes), see
e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_sign. Getting it accepted in the
many parallel standardization processes (involving the national bodies) was
not an easy ride, in spite of the fact that the global IT industry was very
actively participating in the (CEN) project team "Standardization of the
Euro in IT" - I know, I was the project leader.
I don't think that anyone is or has been or should be in the godly position
to tell him/herself or anyone else that such-and-so character or symbol is
something that Unicode would or would not consider encoding. Everything is
up in the air now (as it has always been).
Sincerely,
Erkki I. Kolehmainen
Tilkankatu 12 A 3, FI-00300 Helsinki, Finland
Puh. (09) 4368 2643, 0400 825 943; Tel. +358 9 4368 2643, +358 400 825 943
-----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
Lähettäjä: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org]
Puolesta Doug Ewell
Lähetetty: 5. tammikuuta 2009 6:53
Vastaanottaja: Unicode Mailing List
Kopio: Asmus Freytag; Michael Everson; James Kass
Aihe: Re: Emoji: emoticons vs. literacy
...
EURO SIGN is not an ideal example. It was well known and undisputed in
1998 that this symbol would become ubiquitous and globally important
within a few years. The restriction against novel characters was
clearly and explicitly intended to exclude characters whose importance
and/or staying power was unknown. (Principles and Procedures, section
H.10: "The euro sign... is a novel symbol for which there is
demonstrated and strong demand.")
And even if EURO SIGN did break the rule against "novel" symbols, there
was only one of them, not 618.
...
...
I can no longer tell myself or anyone else that such-and-so character or
symbol is something that Unicode would or would not consider encoding.
Everything is up in the air now.
...
-- Doug Ewell * Thornton, Colorado, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14 http://www.ewellic.org http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages ˆ
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