[VCARDDAV] LANGUAGE parameter vs. cardinality and PIDs

[Simon Perreault <[e-mail]>]

Dearest working group,

Florian Zeitz uncovered a big problem related to the LANGUAGE parameter:

> I'm a bit unclear on the usage of the LANGUAGE param. Is it
> possible/intended to have the same property in different languages?
> E.g.:
> BIRTH;LANGUAGE=de-DE:Köln
> BIRTH;LANGUAGE=en-US:Cologne
> If it is this won't integrate nicely with properties with Cardinality
> (0,1) or (1,1) and PIDs.
> If this usage is however not expected I think it would be useful to
> explicitly state this.

He's referring to this text specifying the PID parameter:

> It MUST NOT appear on properties that only may have one instance per vCard.

It turns out that BIRTH is specified with cardinality (0,1) and so 
cannot have a PID, but the above example should be allowed.

So what do we do? I see two options:

1. Replace the LANGUAGE parameter with a LANGUAGE property, making 
vCards monolingual.

2. Specify how the LANGUAGE parameter affects cardinality (i.e. 
cardinality applies to same-language sets of property instances). Allow 
PID to apply to all properties.

Is the language tag very much used currently? Do we think it is 
important that a vCard can be multilingual?

I think a LANGUAGE property would have more chance of being used. And 
since it simplifies things, and I like simplicity, I like #1 more at 
this point.

Simon
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