Subject: RE: [Ltru] Charter Discussion

From: Misha Wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:23:58 +0100

And I take the slightly different view, that anyone who wants 
the WG to consider using ISO 11179 should come up with one or 
more reasons why we should do so and should persuade the WG 
that these reasons are good ones.

Misha

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Ewell [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: 21 June 2006 16:05
To: LTRU Working Group
Subject: Re: [Ltru] Charter Discussion

[...]

I suggest that we take Randy's option (c)

>    c) require WG to consider using ISO 11179, with the assumption
>        that if the cost/benefit ration proves favorable, we'd use it

[...]

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Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Reuters Ltd.

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---

From: "Addison Phillips" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 08:26:01 -0700

+1

Addison Phillips
Internationalization Architect - Yahoo! Inc.

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.  

> From: Misha Wolf [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: mercredi 21 juin 2006 08:24
> To: LTRU Working Group
> Subject: RE: [Ltru] Charter Discussion
> 
> Any views expressed in this message are those of the 
> individual sender, except where the sender specifically 
> states them to be the views of Reuters Ltd.
> 
>

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:35:22 -0400

> that these reasons are good ones.

Those would rightly be reasons for *using* 11179, not merely
for *considering* its use.

-- 
John Cowan   [email-masked]    http://ccil.org/~cowan
If a soldier is asked why he kills people who have done him no harm, or a
terrorist why he kills innocent people with his bombs, they can always
reply that war has been declared, and there are no innocent people in an
enemy country in wartime.  The answer is psychotic, but it is the answer
that humanity has given to every act of aggression in history.  --Northrop Frye

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 08:41:14 -0700

I'd be stronger about it. Unless someone can present some good reasons
beforehand for even wanting to consider it, we should definitely not put it
in the charter.

Mark

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:47:59 -0400

Mark Davis scripsit:

> I'd be stronger about it. Unless someone can present some good
> reasons beforehand for even wanting to consider [ISO 11179], we should
> definitely not put it in the charter.

The reason for *considering* it is that it's an international standard
that is germane to what we are doing.  If we put it in the charter
and no one presents sufficiently compelling arguments for using it,
we simply say that n default of such arguments we have not used 11179.

But I see no merit to locking ourselves out in advance.

-- 
First known example of political correctness:   John Cowan
After Nurhachi had united all the other         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Jurchen tribes under the leadership of the      [email-masked]
Manchus, his successor Abahai (1592-1643)
issued an order that the name Jurchen should       --S. Robert Ramsey,
be banned, and from then on, they were all           The Languages of China
to be called Manchus.

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:07:23 -0700

But is it germane? We need at least some reasons for considering it. I could
come up with a *host* of standards that are to some degree relevant to what
we are doing; it doesn't mean that we should spend time considering them,
nor does it mean that we have to mention considering each one in the
charter.

Given how much time this group spends arguing about even trivia, there is no
reason to provide more grist for the mill unless someone first presents at
least an initial case for why it would be beneficial.

Mark

---

From: "Addison Phillips" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:18:42 -0700

> But I see no merit to locking ourselves out in advance.

I see merit in limiting the scope of a revision to 3066bis. We have
struggled long and mightily to produce 3066bis. There are very few changes
necessary to incorporate ISO 639-3, which is the reason for producing a
revision. Any additional things we might undertake would need to be really
compelling in order for me to support them.

Look, it isn't as if ISO 11179 was a secret. It was considered during the
development of 3066bis. A few people familiar with the standard counseled
the WG then that it was unnecessary to include it: I don't know if this
advice was good or not. A few arguments were advanced in its favor, but
mainly the argument was "because it is a standard". For us to reverse course
and incorporate it now requires an understanding of the benefits and impact
of trying to include it. I think we have a very real interest in seeing a
revision to 3066bis be very small. Having undergone a major revision, I am
of the opinion that we cannot afford another one.

So I'm open to the argument, but wish someone would produce it. If it cannot
be produced "now" (i.e. in some relatively short period, measured in weeks),
I would oppose even mentioning it in our charter, as it is unlikely to have
a limited scope or be produced later.

Addison

Addison Phillips

> From: John Cowan [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: mercredi 21 juin 2006 08:48
> To: Mark Davis
> Cc: [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:04:25 -0700

Yes, I'm still lurking. My two cents:

I've looked into ISO 11179 very deeply in spots as I'm actively arguing 
for some of its data element naming/description best practices in another 
group I serve. The metadata standard I work on for this group has about 
2,000 data elements (not data *values* such as "en-US", but *elements* 
such as "RFC 3066 Language Code").  Each element must be assigned a 
unique, descriptive name and XML symbol. The naming and unambiguous 
description of elements in large standards such as this can be very 
complicated and benefits from the conceptual metamodel, naming guidelines, 
and other best practices found in ISO 11179. 

RFC 3066 does not seem to approach the scope of this work at all as far as 
the number of data elements it contains. It seems to me that ISO 11179 is 
more appropriate for registries with a larger number of metadata types -- 
something on the IANA scale, not just RFC 3066. 

For the record, I have not read the administrative practices section as 
carefully as the data element naming, metamodel, and description work. 
It's all good stuff, but to me it seems aimed at a registry with a greater 
variety of data.

FWIW,

Karen Broome
Sony Pictures Entertainment

P.S. When this group of traditional engineers complains about the syntax, 
punctuation, and terminology rules I want to set for data element 
description, I tell them how many e-mails a group of IETF linguists are 
willing to generate on the subject of a single apostrophe.  ;)

"Addison Phillips" <[email-masked]> 
06/21/2006 09:18 AM

To
"'John Cowan'" <[email-masked]>, "'Mark Davis'" 
<[email-masked]>
cc
[email-masked]
Subject
RE: [Ltru] Charter Discussion

Look, it isn't as if ISO 11179 was a secret. It was considered during the
development of 3066bis. A few people familiar with the standard counseled
the WG then that it was unnecessary to include it: I don't know if this
advice was good or not. A few arguments were advanced in its favor, but
mainly the argument was "because it is a standard". For us to reverse 
course
and incorporate it now requires an understanding of the benefits and 
impact
of trying to include it. I think we have a very real interest in seeing a
revision to 3066bis be very small. Having undergone a major revision, I am
of the opinion that we cannot afford another one.

So I'm open to the argument, but wish someone would produce it. If it 
cannot
be produced "now" (i.e. in some relatively short period, measured in 
weeks),
I would oppose even mentioning it in our charter, as it is unlikely to 
have
a limited scope or be produced later.

Addison

Addison Phillips

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:13:38 +0900

Hello Karen,

>Yes, I'm still lurking. My two cents: 

This is way more worth than 2 cents! It is the first post in a long
time that actually said more about ISO 11179 than its number and the
degree to which we 'might consider' it.

As a co-chair, I want encourage everybody to either express their
opinions on ISO 11179 with a similar level of detail as Karen, or
to stop repeating their position.

As a technical contributor, Karen's arguments that ISO 11179 is for way
bigger things than our language tag registry is very convincing.
Unless somebody else brings up equally convincing arguments, my
personal opinion is that we should not spend time on IOS 11179 as
a group.

Regards,    Martin.

>I've looked into ISO 11179 very deeply in spots as I'm actively arguing for some of its data element naming/description best practices in another group I serve. The metadata standard I work on for this group has about 2,000 data elements (not data *values* such as "en-US", but *elements* such as "RFC 3066 Language Code").  Each element must be assigned a unique, descriptive name and XML symbol. The naming and unambiguous description of elements in large standards such as this can be very complicated and benefits from the conceptual metamodel, naming guidelines, and other best practices found in ISO 11179. 
>
>RFC 3066 does not seem to approach the scope of this work at all as far as the number of data elements it contains. It seems to me that ISO 11179 is more appropriate for registries with a larger number of metadata types -- something on the IANA scale, not just RFC 3066. 
>
>For the record, I have not read the administrative practices section as carefully as the data element naming, metamodel, and description work. It's all good stuff, but to me it seems aimed at a registry with a greater variety of data. 
>
>FWIW, 
>
>Karen Broome

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:[email-masked]

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:01:39 -0400

[email-masked] scripsit:

> RFC 3066 does not seem to approach the scope of this work at all as
> far as the number of data elements it contains. It seems to me that
> ISO 11179 is more appropriate for registries with a larger number of
> metadata types -- something on the IANA scale, not just RFC 3066.

A cursory look at parts of 11179 leads me to agree; the Language Subtag
Registry is not a "metadata registry" in the relevant sense.  The
metadata registry for language subtags would list the field names in
the registry such as "Subtag:", "Description", "Comment:", etc. etc.,
and is simply too trivial to warrant the application of 11179.

So I withdraw my support for considering 11179 in the new charter.

-- 
John Cowan  [email-masked]  http://ccil.org/~cowan
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
on my shoulders.
        --Hal Abelson

---

From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:37:09 -0700

> Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 8:48 AM

> we simply say that n default of such arguments we have not used 11179.

There are probably two reasons for implementing a product to conform to an ISO standard:

a) it is a de facto industry standard in widespread adoption and for that basically is essential to success of the product (e.g. ISO 9000) 

b) it is a requirement for the product to be acceptable to governmental agencies

It will rarely be the case that the reason for implement a product to conform to an ISO standard is

c) even though it's not widely adopted it holds fantastic innovations with cool benefits

In our situation: 

- I see no indication that (a) holds wrt ISO 11179. 

- Re (b), it's possible that some agencies such as UNESCO might get hooked on ISO 11179, but at present I see no indication that IETF standards-track and best-practice documents are considered insufficiently propped up for governmental acceptance except perhaps in a very limited set of currently-hot areas, such as DNS -- and even in those cases I don't see adoption of something like ISO 11179 being a particular point of government concern.

- Re (c), I don't see any strongly-felt need in our work that ISO 11179 provides a solution for. IIUC, it defines a model for creation of meta-data registries -- both a conceptual model for the information system that constitutes the registry (the infrastructure of the registry as well as the content therein) as well as processes for the maintenance and administration. We already have a registry in place, one that has a fairly-well defined conceptual model (in spite of current debate over certain details) and also established processes for maintenance and administration -- processes with respect to which we have limitations in our flexibility to change. Now, I'm sure that if we studied ISO 11179 we would gain a better understanding of the nature of our endeavour and that we would find ways to improve upon what we have. But, I cannot say whether the cost/benefit ratio would be on the benefit side. The most I can say is that I have not seen reasons to set an expectation of greater benefit than cost.

So, I'm not in principle opposed to use of ISO 11179 and would certainly be open to someone providing a concrete explanation of how this endeavour would benefit from it. I just am not aware of any compelling benefits at this time. 

(Which is basically what I said about 18 months ago when a certain individual was insisting RFC3066bis needed to incorporate conformance to ISO 11179. Oh, and as I also said then, I don't think ISO 11179 actually defines any conformance criteria, so I don't think one can really talk about "conformance to ISO 11179" in any formal sense.)

Peter Constable

---

From: "Peter Constable" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:41:24 -0700

> From: Addison Phillips [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 9:19 AM

+1

The relative importance to incorporate ISO 639-3 over implementation of ISO 11179 is, IMO, a couple of orders of magnitude.

Peter Constable

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:26:03 -0700

+1

On 6/21/06, Peter Constable <[email-masked]> wrote:
> The relative importance to incorporate ISO 639-3 over implementation of
> ISO 11179 is, IMO, a couple of orders of magnitude.
>
>
>
> Peter Constable
>