Re: Suggested character set policy for the IETF

[Ned Freed <Ned.Freed@INNOSOFT.COM>]

> I thought it was obvious: We currently say that a charset is a mapping from a
> series of octets to a sequence of graphic characters. UTF-8 produces a lot more
> than graphic characters.


> I suppose you could argue that US-ASCII does too, but CR and LF are
> specifically dealt with as an exception in MIME, whereas no comparable prose
> exists in MIME to allow, say, directionality indicators.

A small correction here: MIME part II actually does contain an exception
that allows for directionality indicators as well.I forgot that I added
this at the last minute.

However, given that Unicode has all sorts of control information in it besides
directionality indicators, there is still a problem. And I don't think having
to revise MIME every time additional sorts of control information are added to
a character set (something the UTC is planning to do) is a good idea.

				Ned