Unicode Mail List Archive: Re: Exemplar Characters (original) (raw)

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On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, Philippe Verdy wrote:

> I think this was a joke by Michael. He certinaly knows what CLDR is, even if
> he is probably less interested in it, because it is a secondary project out
> of the Unicode standard itself

I would expect Michael to know it, but there's really no necessity of
knowing all the activities of the Unicode Consortium just because of
being an expert on many them.

I wouldn't call CLDR really a project, because in my vocabulary, a project
is something that has fixed goals, resources, and schedule. Rather, it is
a continuing activity - something that needs to be continuing by its
nature. And I wouldn't call it secondary to the Unicode Standard; rather,
parallel to it.

> (it is just hosted by Unicode because most of
> the CLDR contributors are interested and present or represented in the
> Unicode working groups)

I'd rather say that it's hosted by Unicode since the Consortium has
expanded its mission to cover globalization issues above the character
level.

> It remains that CLDR and LDML are just technical specifications for how the
> Unicode standard can be used for those projects

CLDR, including LDML, uses Unicode, for obvious reasons - a modern
specification these days identifies characters by their Unicode numbers
(though it may not require the use of a Unicode encoding).

But it's rather an activity that uses the Unicode Standard as one part of
its infrastructure, just as it uses XML without really being a
specification for how to use XML. Logically, CLDR could use some other
character code in its definitions and data, but nobody wants that.

> And ISO 15924 is also not part of the Unicode standard (it remains a ISO
> standard), despite Unicode hosts it,

The Unicode Consortium is also the registration authority, which means
more than just hosting.

> The assignment of code points and names or script block names is also a
> separate standard not part of the Unicode standard:

Sorry, I can't follow you there. If you are referring to the coordination
of ISO 10646 and the Unicode Standard, it's perhaps best to read what the
Unicode FAQ (and the Unicode Standard) says about the issue.

-- Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

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