UTC #64: Closed Caucus Meeting

For member attendees , see Open Minutes of this meeting.

The topic of the Closed Caucus was the addition of the missing Korean Hangul.  The issues were identified as:
A:  Shall the 4516 Hangul characters be added?
B.  If so, what will be the order of the Hangul characters? The options are: add the 4516 as a separate collection, or deprecate the current code points used for Hangul, and add all Hangul in alphabetic order.
C.  Shall codepoints be assigned to the new Hangul (or to the full alphabetic sequence of Hangul)?
D.  If so, shall the code point assignments be published?

T.J. Kang reported on developments in Korea since the topic was last discussed (at UTC #62 in Toronto).  The Korean national standards body preferred (11-1) to withdraw the Hangul in ISO 10646, in favor of a new contiguous set of 11,172 Hangul in alphabetical order.  A formal proposal to this effect has been made to WG2.  

Mark Davis reviewed UTC action, including the letter ballot in January 1995.  Several Members imposed conditions on their vote, which were difficult to interpret in some cases.  To clarify the situation, the Officers decided that a new vote was called for.

Issue A:
Moved by Davis, seconded by Sargent: 
The Unicode Technical Committee accepts the addition of the remaining 4,516 Hangul syllables as a draft repertoire extension, with no presupposition about code point assignments.

In discussion, Becker and Kang said that they are satisfied this is not a technical issue.  The addition of a complete set of Hangul is a national requirement of Korea (and a very emotional issue).  Addition of a complete set of Hangul had been proposed by Korea at the WG2 meeting in 1991.

Vote on the motion re addition of the 4,516 Hangul: Yes 12, No 3, Abstention 0, Absent 0.  
Motion passed.

Issue B:
Moved by Davis, seconded by McGowan: 
That the UTC accepts normal ordering for the Hangul, in a single contiguous range, and that the existing Hangul syllables be deprecated.

Mark Davis described the effect this would have on code ranges.  The existing range of Hangul (immediately preceding unified Han) would be deprecated.  The 11,172 Hangul would be added immediately before the S-Zone.  This arrangement would allow Han to either grow up or (later) down.  Adams said that the IRG was planning to submit a proposal to add approximately 10K ideographs.

Vote on the motion re normal ordering and deprecation: 
Yes 14, No 0, Abstention 1 (IBM), Absent 0.  
Motion passed (by more than two-thirds).

Issue C:
Moved by Davis, seconded by Sargent: 
The UTC accepts the assignment of draft codepoints for the 11,172 Hangul, to be placed in the normal order just before the S zone (as described in the UTC Ballot of January 1995).
Vote: Yes 12, No 3, Abstention 0, Absent 0. 
Motion passed (by more than two-thirds).

Issue D:
Moved by Davis, seconded by Honomichl: 
The UTC publish as an appendix in the upcoming edition of The Unicode Standard with the (accepted) codepoint assignments clearly marked as draft (pending ISO/IEC JTC1 approval), and to say that companies who implement to this draft do so at their own risk, and with a pointer from the current Hangul section to this appendix.

In discussion of the motion, it was suggested that the pointer should also include directions on how to find out about the current status of the Korean proposal to WG2.

Ksar observed that no date is implied yet, becasue the UTC has not yet approved publication of the new edition.

Vote re publication of draft codepoint assignments: 
Yes 10, No 5, Abstention 0, Absent 0.  
Motion passed (by two-thirds).

Moved by McGowan, seconded by Honomichl: 
The UTC dispense with an appendix and publish the 11,172 without further ado as a regular chapter (with an agreement to “standardize” the characters).

Vote re publication as regular chapterf: Yes 2, No 13, Abstention 0, Absent 0.  
Motion failed.