From kde-core-devel Thu Mar 01 01:51:32 2001 From: Keith Packard Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 01:51:32 +0000 To: kde-core-devel Subject: Re: [otaylor@redhat.com: .desktop files and encodings] X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=98341162010651 Around 22 o'clock on Feb 28, David Faure wrote: > > You guys clearly haven't been involved in the XFree86 i18n wars. The JIS > > users will resist assimilation for as long as possible... > > Hmm, the fact that a desktop files uses UTF-8 doesn't mean that > the user has to enter anything in UTF-8 himself. > Translators have proper tools for that (kbabel), and the user sees > the string in his language (obviously :) - I mean, even if he doesn't > have UTF-8 fonts. The essential argument is that UTF-8 is insufficient for encoding han documents, especially those requiring multi-lingual support including Chinese, Japanese and Korean. This would make it inappropriate for any file that might contain han characters. ISO 2022 is preferred, as that spec allows embedding multiple local encodings within a larger structure. You'll note that even C99 doesn't specify ISO 10646 for wchar_t, instead requiring applications remain neutral to the encoding for each locale. And the BSDies are headed into na-na land by using a non-10646 wchar_t for most asian locales in their implementation. A lot of this has roots in the original 16-bit Unicode spec, which was clearly insufficient, and the NIH attitude taken by the JIS encoding community. I think you should use UTF-8 and let the JIS users implement their own house of horrors based in ISO 2022, but you may need asbestos suits... keithp@keithp.com XFree86 Core Team SuSE, Inc.