From: William Overington (WOverington@ngo.globalnet.co.uk)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 08:03:12 EDT
Michael Everson wrote as follows.
>At 08:44 -0700 2003-06-25, Doug Ewell wrote:
>
>>If it's true that either the UTC or WG2 has formally approved the
character, for a future version of Unicode or a future amendment to 10646,
then I don't see any reason why font makers can't PRODUCE a font with a
glyph for the proposed character at the proposed code point.
>>They just can't DISTRIBUTE the font until the appropriate standard is
released.
>That's correct.
Well, certainly authority would be needed, yet I am suggesting that where a
few characters added into an established block are accepted, which is what
is claimed for these characters, there should be a faster route than having
to wait for bulk release in Unicode 4.1. If these characters have been
accepted, why not formally warrant their use now by having Unicode 4.001
and then having Unicode 4.002 when a few more are accepted? These minor
additions to the Standard could be produced as characters are accepted and
publicised in the Unicode Consortium's webspace. If the characters have not
been accepted then they cannot be considered ready to be used, yet if they
have been accepted, what is the problem in releasing them so that people who
want to get on with using them can do so? Some fontmakers can react to new
releases more quickly than can some other fontmakers, so why should progress
be slowed down for the benefit of those who cannot add new glyphs into fonts
quickly?
For example, symbols for audio description, subtitles and signing are needed
for broadcasting. Will that need to have years of waiting and using the
Private Use Area when it could be a fairly swift process and the characters
could be implemented into read-only memories in interactive television sets
that much sooner? Why is it that it is regarded by the Unicode Consortium
as reasonable that it takes years to get a character through the committees
and into use? Surely where a few characters are needed the Unicode
Consortium and ISO need to take a twenty-first century attitude to getting
the job done for people's needs rather than having the sort of delays which
might have been acceptable in days gone by. The idea of having to use the
Private Use Area for a period after the characters have been accepted is
just a nonsense.
William Overington
26 June 2003
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