Re: [Ltru] RE: Remove extlang from ABNF? (Was: summary ofrecommendations coming out of this week's teleconf

At 06:59 07/12/04, Peter Constable wrote:
>> From: Stephane Bortzmeyer [mailto:bortzmeyer@nic.fr]

>> Warning, it means that tags which were well-formed in RFC 4646 (but
>> not valid since no extlang was registered) won't be well-formed
>> anymore. Isn't a violation of the stability principle? (Yes, the
>> "extlang" production in RFC 4646 was marked as "reserved for future
>> use" but it was legal nevertheless.)
>
>Correct. Since there have never been registered extlang subtags, there 
>might be parsers that allow for it but there should not be any tags that 
>include them. If some such tags are out there in the wild, they would be 
>well-formed but not valid in 4646, and neither well-formed nor valid in 
>4646bis (under this proposal).

My understanding is that if we leave the production in the ABNF,
such tags would still be well-formed. I don't think we can have
it both ways. The tags would be well-formed but obsolete.

I think we should be very clear about what the consequences of our
draft are. I think we are extremely clear on the fact that we don't
want anybody to generate tags with extlangs (except for a few pre-
registered ones (*)). But what about applications receiving these
tags? Are we okay with applications that accept tags with extlangs
as well-formed? Are we okay with applications that don't accept
tags with extlangs as well-formed? Are we okay with both? What
does that mean for existing implementations?

Regards,    Martin.

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

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