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Re: Registering a charset alias
Hello Anne, others,
I haven't seen anything on this from Ned (who is the Primary Expert, see
http://www.iana.org/protocols/ (search for "Character Sets")), so with
my hat of Secondary Expert, I agree with Ira that in order to add an
alias to a registration, you just send in an updated registration form
to this list. Unless Ned disagrees (or somebody appeals to the Area
Director or the IESG), please consider that the 'official opinion'.
Please note that *you* have to submit the registration form to this
list, *you* have to update it if necessary to reflect comments on the
list, and *you* have to submit it to IANA and the reviewers after the
review period passed successfully so that it can actually be registered.
We (Ned and myself) are just Expert Reviewers, not active registry
maintainers, and IANA just carries out secretarial functions.
Please submit each update in a separate mail (a single request in case
you want to add two or more aliases to the same charset) with a clear
Subject. You may want to start with just a couple of requests in order
to get some exercise and test the waters.
I personally don't like aliases, but the charset registry already has
lots of them so that the additional damage of adding a few more, in
particular if they are backed well by actual data and implementations,
isn't a problem when compared to the benefit of having all relevant
alias data in a single place.
As for aliases starting with x-, I just did a fairly detailed reread of
the relevant specs, and I haven't found anything prohibiting a
registered charset to start with x-. What the specs say is that you MUST
use a x- prefix for private use, but NOT that an x- prefix is limited to
private use and cannot be registered. There are other registries that
have accepted registration of tokens starting with x-, e.g.
http://www.iana.org/assignments/message-headers/prov-headers.html. So my
opinion is that registering a charset alias starting with x- overall is
beneficial for the community if such an alias is or has been in wide use
(which is certainly the case at least for x-sjis). Also, years ago,
registration of charsets was handled very, very restrictively, and that
as far as I understand led to more x- use than would be necessary. So to
some extent, it was the registry's fault, and so the registry should
take over the responsibility for cases such as x-sjis.
So in summary, for simple aliases, including those starting with x-,
please go ahead and submit updated registration requests. Of course,
these will be subject to comments and such as any other request, too.
Regards, Martin.
On 2009/08/14 8:14, Ira McDonald wrote:
> Hi Anne,
>
> Quoting from IANA Charset Registration Procedures (RFC 2978/BCP 19):
>
> 2.3. Naming Requirements
>
> One or more names MUST be assigned to all registered charsets.
> Multiple names for the same charset are permitted, but if multiple
> names are assigned a single primary name for the charset MUST be
> identified. All other names are considered to be aliases for the
> primary name and use of the primary name is preferred over use of any
> of the aliases.
>
> Each assigned name MUST uniquely identify a single charset.
>
> <...>
>
> 3.1. Present the Charset to the Community
>
> Send the proposed charset registration to the "ietf-
> charsets@iana.org" mailing list. (Information about joining this
> list is available on the IANA Website, http://www.iana.org.) This
> mailing list has been established for the sole purpose of reviewing
> proposed charset registrations. Proposed charsets are not formally
> registered and must not be used; the "x-" prefix specified in RFC
> 2045 can be used until registration is complete.
>
> The posting of a charset to the list initiates a two week public
> review process.
>
> IANA won't register a free-standing charset alias (there's no procedure),
> but you can revise an existing charset registration.
>
> So:
> (1) You could NOT update the 'Windows-31J' and 'Big5' registrations
> to add 'x-sjis' and 'x-x-big5 aliases, because of the 'x-' prefixes.
>
> (2) You could update 'Windows-31J' for a 'Windows-932' alias.
>
> (3) You could NOT update the 'Windows-1252' registration to add
> 'US-ASCII' (the preferred MIME name of ANSI_X3.4-1968) or
> 'ISO-8859-1' (the preferred MIME name of ISO_8859-1:1987),
> because they would be ambiguous names.
>
> Does HTML5 *really* make such an unwise suggestion about
> treating US-ASCII and ISO-8859-1 as Windows-1252?
>
> Cheers,
> - Ira (editor of original IANA Charset MIB, RFC 3808)
>
> Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
> Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
> Blue Roof Music/High North Inc
> email: blueroofmusic@gmail.com
> winter:
> 579 Park Place Saline, MI 48176
> 734-944-0094
> summer:
> PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839
> 906-494-2434
>
--
#-# Martin J. Dürst, Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp