The working group will clarify text where necessary. It may also make adjustments to the registration process and the form of the registry if this is deemed appropriate based on ongoing registration and operational experience. These adjustments and clarifications are not expected to delay the progress of the work.
In fact, IIRC this very general wording was inserted into the charter to allow the possibility of changing from "record-jar-like format with hex NCRs" to "record-jar-like format in UTF-8," which is what we did. It could conceivably have allowed for changing the Registry to XML or any other suitable format, but as Martin noted, that's more of an overhaul than an adjustment.
For many registries which are currently maintained just in an ad-hoc, ill-defined format, this could potentially be a great improvement.
The registry used in the RFC 1766/3066 era leaps instantly to mind.
However, it would be strange if the IETF took a willingness of IANA to move to XML as an order to IETF WGs to change their formats to XML. This would reflect extremely badly on the autonomy of the IETF and its ability to make decisions in the best technical interest of the relevant communities.
+1 -- 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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