ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 N

3371/WG2 N2131
Date: 1999-09-30

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2
CODED CHARACTER SETS
SECRETARIAT: JAPAN (JISC)

DOC TYPE:

Other document

TITLE:

SC 2/WG 2 Contribution on Initiating Formal Processing of Amendments to ISO/IEC
10646 (Response to JTC 1 N5826)

SOURCE:

Mr. Mike Ksar, Convener, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2

PROJECT:--STATUS:

According to Resolution M37.17 of the WG 2 Copenhagen Meeting, 1999-0913/16, Mr. Mike Ksar, Convener of WG 2, has submitted the attached document
WG 2 N 2049) to the SC 2 Chairman/Secretariat for their information. It is
forwarded to JTC 1 for information/consideration at its Seoul Plenary Meeting, 199911-01/05.

ACTION ID:

FYIDUE DATE:
DISTRIBUTION: P, O and L Members of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2
WG Conveners and Secretariats
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1
ISO/IEC ITTF
NO. OF PAGES:

5ACCESS LEVEL: Defined
WEB ISSUE #:064

Contact: Secretariat ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 - Toshiko KIMURAIPSJ/ITSCJ (Information Processing Society of Japan/Information Technology Standards Commission of Japan)*Room 308-3, Kikai-Shinko-Kaikan Bldg., 3-5-8, Shiba-Koen, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0011 JAPAN
Tel: +81 3 3431 2808; Fax: +81 3 3431 6493; E-mail: kimura@itscj.ipsj.or.jp*A Standard Organization accredited by JISC

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 N 3371
SC 2/WG 2 Convener's Remarks:
At its 37th Meeting held in Copenhagen, 1999-09-13/16, WG 2 considered document JTC1 N5826 regarding theissue of when to use NP versus subdivision process for new amendments to 10646.
WG2, SC2 and technical experts from several national bodies, including Japan, support utilizing the current
procedures in JTC1 for using subdivision of work item rather than establishing NP to extend the capabilities of theflexible architecture of 10646 and meet urgent and immediate market needs. In addition, WG2 is willing to look atutilizing the NP process where there is a consensus to do so.
I ask SC2 Chair and/or Secretariat to relay WG2's feedback when this topic comes up for discussion at the next
JTC1 plenary. Document SC2/WG2 N2049 is attached for reference.

N 2049ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2
Date: 1999-08-10
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2
Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) – ISO/IEC 10646
Title:
Contribution on Initiating Formal Processing of Amendments to ISO/IEC 10646 (Response to JTC 1 N5826)
Doc Type: Expert Contribution
Source:Mark Davis, Michael Everson, Asmus Freytag, Edwin Hart, Erkki Kolehmainen, Mike Ksar, Rick McGowan, Lisa
More, Ken Whistler, Arnold Winkler
Status:
For review and discussion at the WG 2 Meeting in Denmark in September
Action ID: ACT
Distribution: SC 2/WG 2 Members and Liaison Organizations
We ask you to discuss this document at the WG 2 Meeting in Denmark and if appropriate, to apply the suggestions
here to the WG 2 procedures.

Summary
Here is a summary of the major points of the enclosed document to respond to JTC 1 N5826:
1. We want to continue to use the project subdivision process for amendments where SC 2 is confident that thecommunities of interest (a) are involved, (b) have reached consensus on a proposal, and (c) intend to use theproposed new encoding in ISO/IEC 10646. (The “intent to use” is a new criterion.) However, where SC 2
cannot identify knowledgeable experts or the communities of interest, the NP process should be used toidentify the communities of interest for the purpose of developing and reaching consensus for the new set ofcharacters and ordering.
2. We provide guidelines for initiating formal work (under project subdivision versus NP) to encode a new set ofcharacters or new script.

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1999-08-10

Contribution on Initiating Formal Processing of Amendments
to ISO/IEC 10646 (Response to JTC 1 N5826)
References
1. JTC 1, N5698, Japan, “Japanese National Body Recommendation to ISO/IEC JTC 1 Concerning the Activitiesof JTC 1/SC 2”, 1998-12-25.
2. JTC 1, N5766R, Ireland, “Response to Japanese National Body recommendations to ISO/IEC JTC 1
concerning the activities of JTC1/SC2 (JTC1 N5698)”, 1999-02-26.
3. JTC 1, N5818, US, “United States National Body Comments in Response to JTC 1 N 5754 - Request forComments on the Activities of SC 2 as Detailed in JTC 1 N 5698 (Japanese National Body Recommendation
to JTC 1 Concerning the Activities of SC 2)”, 1999-06-23.
4. JTC 1, N5826, JTC 1, “Notification of Endorsement of the Proposed Modifications to the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2
Programme of Work”, 1999-07-01.
5. JTC 1/SC 2 N3341, SC 2, “SC2 Comment on ISO/IEC JTC1 N5698, the Japanese National Body
Recommendation to ISO/IEC JTC1 Concerning the Activities of JTC1 SC2”, 1999-07-23.
6. JTC 1/SC 2 N3342, SC 2, “SC2/WG2 Charter”, 1999-07-23.

RequestIn this document, we provide additional comments for SC 2/WG 2 to consider in responding to document JTC 1
N5826. In general, we believe that the use of project subdivision (balloted by JTC 1/SC 2) has overwhelming
advantages over requiring an NP (balloted by JTC 1) for the initiation of amendments to ISO/IEC 10646.
However, we do see some circumstances where using an NP ballot would be a reasonable and useful alternative.
In this document, we propose guidelines for deciding when a proposed amendment to ISO/IEC 10646 issufficiently mature to initiate the formal standardization process via project subdivision versus an NP.

Background
In document JTC 1 N5826, “SC 2 is directed to modify the programme of work as indicated in JTC 1 N 5785,
taking into account the Japanese National Body comments received.” It then lists two comments from the Japanese
National Body. We are concerned in particular about the first comment:
JNB believes that the additional work for amendment or addendum to ISO/IEC 10646 should be started
with the NP process rather than with the simple modification of the Programme of Work.
We see two issues with this document: First, what is the appropriate way to initiate amendments to ISO/IEC10646? Second, what are appropriate guidelines for deciding the mechanism to formally initiate the effort?

Issue 1: Appropriate Mechanism to Initiate Amendments to ISO/IEC 10646
The first issue is: Where should approval be for initiating the process to amend ISO/IEC 10646 to encode anotherscript (writing system) or particular set of characters—at the SC 2 level by modifying the program of work, or at
the JTC 1 level by starting a new work item (NP)? We believe that approvals for amendments should remain at theSC 2 level by using the mechanism to modify the program of work and subdivide the project. However undersome circumstances, it would be valuable to solicit JTC 1 members for guidance and support. For these
exceptional circumstances, the NP process would be more appropriate.
Here is our rationale to support continuing to have SC 2 approve the formal initiation of most amendments to10646:
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1.

We believe that using the modification of the program of work to subdivide a project supports the JTC 1 goalof “market relevance”.
ISO/IEC 10646 is a phenomenally successful international standard that has wide support in the IT industry. In
ISO/IEC 10646, ISO has certainly reached its goal to develop standards (a) that have market relevance and (b)that have major industry implementations. However in the IT industry, timeliness is an important part of“market relevance”. The IT vendors thrive on their ability to quickly deliver products to market. By adding
the additional step of NP approval for all amendments to ISO/IEC 10646, SC 2 would be doing a disservice tothe industry by further delaying an already lengthy process for encoding new scripts and character sets in
ISO/IEC 10646.
In making the decision, consider for example, the request to add the EURO SIGN (“ ”) to ISO/IEC 10646. Thisrequirement had the highest priority in the European community and certainly met the JTC 1 criteria formarket relevance. Moreover, the request came with a firm implementation deadline of 1999-01-01. As it was,SC 2 submitted the FDAM for approval in document SC 2 N3188 dated 1998-10-22, and ITTF did notannounce approval until 1999-05-12 in document SC 2 N3321. Even without the delay of an NP ballot, SC 2
was still unable to produce an approved amendment for this critical requirement until well after the deadline.
Where would SC 2 have been in the process if it had been required to submit this amendment to NP balloting?

1.

We believe that most approvals should done at the SC 2 level.
Once JTC 1 has approved an NP for a standard and subsequently approved the standard itself, we believe that
it is both unnecessary and counterproductive for JTC 1 to micro-manage the detail of initiating amendments toa standard, unless the amendments are outside of the original scope of the standard. The scope for ISO/IEC
10646 is to be the Universal Coded Character Set, which encodes the world’s, characters in as consistent andtechnically usable a manner as possible. These characters include major national and historical scripts, lesserused scripts, and symbols of various kinds.
Moreover, using the NP process to decide which additional scripts and characters to encode in ISO/IEC 10646
represents increased work for JTC 1. Although SC 2/WG 2 has documented the scripts that need to be added
to ISO/IEC 10646, ISO/IEC 10646 standardization is more open-ended than many other international standards
because of the large number of scripts involved. Since JTC 1 approved ISO/IEC 10646-1 in 1993, SC 2/WG 2
has undertaken 31 amendments and 3 corrigenda. Does JTC 1 really want to process an NP ballot for every
additional amendment and corrigendum proposed to ISO/IEC 10646? We think not. We believe that attending
to such details for every proposed amendment to add new characters to 10646 would be a waste of valuable
JTC 1 time. In addition, we think that SC 2 would be shirking its responsibility if it were to require that all
10646 amendments be submitted as NPs to JTC 1. In most instances, the decision should be done at the SC 2
level by those National Bodies more knowledgeable in the work of SC 2. Finally, does JTC 1 want to start NP
ballots for every amendment to every JTC 1 standard? We believe that having SC 2 submit all amendments toISO/IEC 10646 for an NP ballot would be establishing a precedent that could lead to NP ballots for amending
every JTC 1 standard.

Issue 2: Suggested Guidelines to Initiate Processing of Amendments to ISO/IEC 10646
The second issue is: What are the guidelines for deciding whether a proposed amendment should be initiated byproject subdivision or by NP ballot? The essential concern appears to be that SC 2 needs to have quality proposals
that have the support of the interested communities, which may include national bodies, liaison organizations,scholarly groups, individual experts, and organizations representing the user community. However, even though
SC 2 needs to encode lesser-used scripts into ISO/IEC 10646, it may be difficult for SC 2 to identify thecommunities of interest. Under these circumstances, SC 2 could use an NP ballot to solicit help to identify thoseinterested communities, obtain feedback, and build a proposal that has the support of those communities.
However, in general the work of identifying and working with such communities is done at JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2 level
before SC 2 receives a formal request, and so the need for SC 2 to use the NP procedure may or may not arise.
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To help assure the quality of and backing for ISO/IEC 10646 amendment proposals to encode new scripts andcharacter sets, we propose the following criteria:
Corrigendum
SC 2 should approve the initiation of any Corrigendum to ISO/IEC 10646 via project subdivision.
Amendments
SC 2 should initiate the formal process to amend the ISO/IEC 10646 standard via the project subdivision process ifa proposal for new characters or a new script meets the SC 2/WG 2 criteria (the current document is SC 2/WG 2
N2002, “Principles and Procedures for Allocation of New Characters and Scripts and handling of Defect Reports
on Character Names (Replaces N 1502)”, dated 1999-03-11) with the addition of the following criteria:
1. The proposal identifies a representative set of interested and authoritative organizations and/or individual
experts that have been contacted in the preparation of the proposal.
2. The proposed script or set of characters has consensus support among the appropriate user communities,
national bodies, liaison organizations, individual experts, and/or academic communities with interest andexpertise on the character set. In particular, the community of users needs (a) to support the proposal(consensus) and (b) to intend to use the characters coded in the ISO/IEC 10646 amendment when ISO
approves it (market relevance).
If a proposal for an amendment to ISO/IEC 10646 fails to meet the above criteria for project subdivision approval
by SC 2, then SC 2 may submit an NP request to JTC 1 with the intent of identifying interested and authoritative
organizations that would help develop and reach consensus on a proposal to amend ISO/IEC 10646 to encode newcharacters.

Requested Action
In conclusion, we believe that project subdivision is the appropriate mechanism to initiate most amendments foradding new scripts and character sets to ISO/IEC 10646. However, for those exceptional circumstances where SC
2 is concerned that a proposal for a new script or set of characters may have had insufficient involvement andsupport by the user community, we believe that it may be appropriate to initiate an NP to solicit JTC 1 support andidentify the communities with an interest in a proposal.
[END OF DOCUMENT]

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