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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: [otaylor@redhat.com: .desktop files and encodings]
From:       Keith Packard <keithp () keithp ! com>
Date:       2001-03-01 1:51:32
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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.

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