From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Newsgroups: news.future
Subject: Re: Newsreader supporting MIME
Date: 9 Nov 92 14:33:45 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK

In article <1992Nov9.132448.26542@rdg.dec.com>, kostis@frsmic.enet.dec.com (Kosta Kostis) writes:
|> In article <3949@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca>, clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes...
|> [...]
|> >>>minor benefit of being 8-bit clean.
|> > 
|> >>It may be a minor benefit for you, but it's not minor for people outside
|> >>the english speaking community - and that's the majority in the world.
|> > 
|> >This may well be true, but irrelevant - something like 80% of the people
|> >on the net are in the USA.
|> 
|> Irrelevant? I'd call that ignorance! There are much less US citizens in
|> the world than let's say european. Did you ever notice that?  8-)
|> And the Internet, especially in europe is growing real fast - I'd guess
|> faster than the US part of it. Maybe it won't take much time and less
|> than 50% of the people on the net reside in the USA.  ;-)
|> Nah, it *will* take some time - but we're coming...  8-)

I was irritated by the post, too; but we have to recognise that the
USA does constitute overwhelmingly the largest part of the net, just
now.

|> >>Poor maintenance is no excuse. If all things would go that slow, imagine
|> >>the impact on science and todays life. Well, I just think we should move
|> >>our lazy b*s and do something about it.
|> > 
|> >All things *do* go that slow.  Or slower.  How long was it before the
|> >Wright brother's invention was widely used?
|> 
|> If you don't push things (again and again), *nothing* ever moves.
|> Should "all things go that slow" be the US mentality nowadays, I doubt
|> your new president will be successful in any way... Come on!
|> I can't believe that. Are you already that tired over there?  :-)
|> Hey, wasn't it the USA who brought the first man to the moon some
|> time ago?

The way to solve this problem is not to slag off the American
mentality (which isn't as bad as you suggest) but to do positive
things such as Brad Templeton suggests - new services that require
8-bit cleanliness.  If people find that they need a new service, they
will be far more likely than otherwise to go through the pain of
re-installing their news system.

|> [...]
|> Don't worry about the "big non-UNIX" crowd. I use DOS Waffle 1.65 at home
|> with a self made patch converting between IBM Code Page 437/850 and
|> ISO 8859-1.

How many outfits throughout the world have the capability of writing
their own patches?  You're an honourable exception, not the rule.
Make your stuff available to the world at large, and you'll make
things start to happen.

|>             UUCP-software for the Atari ST (HERMES) has a converter
|> already build in. Amigas use ISO 8859-1 by definition (native character set).
|> Converters for Macs shouldn't be that much of a problem...
|> At least some X/Windows fonts do support ISO 8859-1.
|> 
|> All I'm asking for, is that those who need 8 Bits to encode theirs mails
|> and articles should be given the chance to do that. The transport mechanisms
|> have allways been 8 Bit channels - just RFC 821/822 invented the cripeling.
|> 
|> I think I better worry about people that are convinced there's no way to
|> change things (in a chaotic network)... =;^)

There _is_ a way to change.  The facts you give above indicate that
8859-1 is starting to percolate through the community.  [How fast it
will permeate in the face of the more complicated ISO 10646/Unicode,
which includes 8859-1, is an interesting question.]

I simply maintained (in my original post in this thread) that change
is not something that will come easily.

|> sw-authors: please support ISO 8859-1   dv|DV\_=aeoeueAEOEUEss

Hear! hear!  
--
Robin (come back John Drummond) Fairbairns       rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK
"They had twelve years to lay in wait for us" - Bush supporter on Nov 4