Notes on SC2/WG2 Meeting # 28 - Helsinki, Finland
N 1253 DRAFT
1. Opening and roll call
1.1
Start at 09:08h.
Mike Ksar welcomed the delegates. We have two days and a full agenda. Try to keep to important items and postpone others to next meeting.
Mr. Mahti Lahti, welcomed the delegates on behalf of the SFS, Finnish national body. The Finnish Data Communication Association represents SFS ??
FDCA's primary subject matter is EDI and data communications field. A community of 100 members (users and suppliers)..
About 4million FIM budget - of which less than 30 percent from Finnish government. 8 full time employees. Acts as a meta organization for data comms development. About 100 specialists with focal points for the different groups -- do the work.
Involved in IT Standards, ISO/JTC1, CEN/NTS7, together with ITDC, EWOS, and cooperation with TAC and SASKO in Finland.
Central point for EDI message development - national and international. There is a user gruop of 900 EDI users. Also in UN WG on EDI.
Provide infor services, conferences, pubs, stds newsletter etc..
Logistics of this meeting: Meeting secretary - Elina Lahti - will assist. There is a laser printer - actually two printers available. A second room is available for other meetings. Assistance with printing will be made available. Copying machine is also made available. Coffee time: 10:30h ..Lunch at 12:30h. Dinner suggestions will be available. Lunch tickets are already with the room. Local calls dial 0.
990 Finland telecom; 999 Finnet or 994 for Telivo - competing international carriers - plus country code etc.
Wish you a pleasant and productive meeting.
ROLL CALL
Attendance sheet will be distributed.
2. Approval of the agenda (N 1211)
Reference document N 1211
Revised agenda was presented on the screen.
Item 5 - Latest SC2 ballots - will not be covered,
6.1 - Procedures / Summary document (1202, 1218)
6.21206 - Annex Q
6.3pDAM5 - under ballot. N1209, N1198, N1199
6.4N1216 Cumulative List
Greece: N 1208George will make brief presentation
Israel: N 1217, N 1195R?
China - Mongolia: N 1226 - ?may be postponed
China - Tibetan: N1227 - individual contribution from lloyd
N _____
China: Uygur, kazakh, Kirghiz: N 1225
Ireland: N1132R, N 1058 - Gaelic
Sweden - Runic: N 1210, N 1222
6.5Individual Contributions - DELAYED
7.Defect Reports
7.1N1207, N 1193 editorial
7.2N 1194 - non editorial
8IRG
9Liaison reports
Will be mostly info.
10Other Business
10.1.1ECMA TC1 N _____, N 1157 (Maintenance agency, denmark)
10..1.2Issues list N 1220
10.2 ....
(See hardcopy of agenda)
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Plan to meet two days' meeting full day.
Closing on resolutions can be on Wednesday PM. Drafting committee will prepare resolutions etc.
Floor opened for new items:
Discussion - Michael Everson: Runic, Translatability of names.
10 Latvian characters - individual contribution - for next meeting.
Agenda adopted with modifications.
DRAFTING COMMITTEE: Sato-san, Zhang Zhou Chai, Bruce Paterson, Mike Ksar and Uma.
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3. Approval of the minutes of meeting 27 (Geneva, Switzerland): N 1203
Uma reviewed the minutes.
Editorial corrections are requested to be sent to Uma.
Approved with corrections that will be noted.
4. Review action items from previous meeting: N 1203
See document ACTIOOLR.DOC (Action item resolutions).
N1214Unsatisfied Defect Reports from UK
Bruce Paterson presented. The paper deals with two of the defect reports from UK presented at the Antalya meeting. Original proposed solution was to change the character names. At Antalya, because name changes should be entertained only as a last resort, the solution was not accepted. Two items are presented - one on Greek Extended and another one on Latin Extended-B characters,
For the Greek Extended characters:
A correction to the glyph is proposed - to remove the prosgegrammeni mark (iota subscript) on x1ffA and x1FFB is to be removed. Greek national body has confirmed that the mistake is in the glyph and not in the character name.
RESOLUTION: Accept the proposed solution. Give Editor Instructions - start a new defect report correction list.
Latin Extended B - 0189,0256, 019F, 0275 - the names of 0189 and 019Fwill have additional information in the Annex Q to indicate they are the capital letter forms of the corresponding lower case letters with Tail.
RESOLUTION: Accept the proposed solution. Give Editor Instructions - start a new defect report correction list.
5. Review latest SC2 ballot results
6. Repertoire issues:
6.1 Review summary of proposed additions to repertoire:
N 1202 (to be made available)
6.1.1N1202Principles and Procedures for Allocation of New Characters and Scripts (Revised N 1116)
Sven presented N 1202. Explained the additions.
Mr. van Wingen: Need to know authoritative sources for the script. Official sources or organizations should be identified. Currently such information is to be included in the form.
Asmus: Concerns - We do encode a variety of characters. Some, like mathematical symbols, may not have an official resource. The document does call for a responsibility of the submitter to have a reasonable authentication of the source of the characters. Suggest accept the document's content and try to take into consideration during the WG 2 evaluation.
Michel: I second the comment made by Asmus. WG2 should give due consideration for each proposal and not over load the guidelines.
Mike Ksar: We had discussion in Geneva on the topic -- under 'character ownership' discussion. We should not put statements like 'national body has higher priority over others etc.' in the guideline document.
van Wingen: there may be 'legal requirements authorities' and we should be sensitive to it.
Keld: Propose we accept the document.
6.1.2N 1218: Comments on Character Addition Proposal Summary Form (N1116)
Sato san presented:
Some national bodies have misused the form due to the wordiing. The proposal is to have better wording towards better information in the summary form.
a. Editorial on 1b
b. Reference the level of implementation (see clause 15 of the standard)
c. 'legible', 'readable' - 'reviewable form' etc. was discussed.
Accept suggestion C-9.
Do not accept Addition-2.
Asmus:
Would like to have some means of being able to easily reference the standing documents - for example: 02, 52, ..etc.
Comments:
Sven will update N1202 to include the proposed corrections in N 1218.
Keld: Proposal to have a paragraph to indicate which is the current 'standing document(s)'.
Uma: Can include also the list of the latest 'standing documents' for reference.
Mike Ksar: Will add a list of latest standing documents in the document register document.
6.2 Review N 1206: Proposed text for Annex Q - Additional information on characters
N1206:Proposed Annex Q
Mike Everson: Let us adopt it.
Mr. van Wingen: We do have an opportunity to include more before finalization. It should not be frozen.
Uma: Keep the discussion into two - concept of the annex and its purpose. Also, the current contents is another point - they have been following all the resolutions already taken.
Asmus: We need to ratify the contents of this annex also.
Keld:Should we send this out for ballot?
Bruce:This annex Q - is a collection of all editorial corrigenda and including the approved technical corrigenda that have been approve so far.
Keld:Are we not going to send it forward to ITTF. Denmark would like to see the corrigenda published as soon as possible.
Bruce:We can go ahead and publish the approved technical corrigendum. We have the option of also sending for publication those editorial corrigenda for which we do have fonts.
Ksar: we will add PUBLICATION SCHEDULE - to be discussed.
Bruce: A reduced version of Annex Q, with only those items related to the technical corrigendum is ready to go to the secretariat.
N 1206 - is accepted. It has captured all the relevant resolutions of WG2.
(Further processing is to be discussed.)..
6.3 Review pDAM 5 on Korean Hangul: N 1209, N 1198 and N 1199
pDAM-5 is under ballot in SC2, closing in August 1995. It may be discussed at the SC2 meeting, byt cannot be discussed at WG2. Member bodies are encouraged to make sure their ballot responses are returned on time.
6.4 Submittals/Re-submittals:
6.4.1N1216 - Repertoire additions of 10646 - Cumulative List
FOR INFORMATION and Feedback from National Bodies. To add any new characters from this meeting.
6.4.2Greece: List of Greek (Byzantine) musical notation system: N 1208
N1208
George - Presented.
Replace xxxx with 1326 under item 8 of the proposal summary form.
220 characters are proposed to be added.
Mike Everson: Existing Western Notation is not encoded in the BMP. It is not in Unicode 1.1 either. Would it be more appropriate to include outside the BMP.
George: Whether a NOTE is a character is open. This proposal is not a simple notation system. The proposed system is needed for representing the voice. Our desire is to put in the BMP.
Stefan - These symbols are similar to the cantillation marks. These are needed for biblical text annotations. It may be unique to Greek.
Mike Ksar: It is used in the Greek Orthodox Church. Not unique to Greek language. We have to address the questions of 'accepting the repertoire' and the other is 'includion in BMP or not'.
Michel: Would prefer to put in the BMP - due to potential use of BMP for more frequent characters.
Asmus: We have received the information - we would like to study this more even before we decide on whether to include the characters or the followon question of whether to include in the BMP?
This script is a new script, not before brought to WG2's attention. Would invite the Greek national body to convene a group of interested parties.
Mike Ksar: Are there other interested parties? WG2 national bodies and liaison organizations should be invited to study the Greek contribution, identify any experts interested in the subject and be able to comment meaningfully on the subject.
Jurgen: The proposal is different in the sense that characters are used in singing - unlike the characters that have been encountered so far by WG2.
George: These are GREEK SYMBOLS used for Musical symbols. Greece is preparing a national standard on this subject, and need to come to a resolution as early as possible.
ACTION ITEM:National Bodies to study the contribution in N1208 and feedback to the Greek national body. Will be on the agenda for November meeting.
Michel: if there is no national feedback - what happens?
Mike: we will place it on the agenda for November meeting.
Asmus: there are higher priority items - and we should consider these first. Unicode consortium does not have enough resources to be able to provide feedback as and when WG 2 wants it. The consortium may not be able to give any feedback depending on work load within their consortium.
Jurgen: Over the years we will be collecting a number of repertoire We do not have a means of any prioritization.
Uma: N 1116 (now N 1202) has a means of providing some prioritization. Greece has requested this proposal to be Category A. One can certainly raise a question on this.
Mike: we will place it on the agenda for the next meeting, and the national bodies will be expected to have studied the contribution and take a position on whether the script is category A or not etc..
6.4.3ISRAEL: N 1217 Hebrew Cantillation marks
Stefan Fuchs presented.
Based on discussion on N 1195 at the Geneva meeting, clarifications were requested on several points. Document N 1217 includes all the clarifications. The document includes copies of the national standard and additional examples are included.
Bruce: Is the intention to have Hebrew basic and Hebrew extended - collections. Which collections do these characters do these go to?
Stefan: All characters are in Basic Extended. Proposed code table in attachment A shows new characters are to be added in empty positions of Table 14.
Michael: There are three characters with different names. Propose that other names be recognized with editorial corrections.
Stefan: ISI will be submitting additional names in Annex Q at a later date. It will not be included in this go around.
Uma: would it be better to have those characters identified with * on the candidate names.
Stefan; no. It will be at a later date.
Asmus: satisfied with the resolution of all the comments from ISI.
Jurgen: Are all these characters belong to Hebrew? Including the upper dot?
Stefan: Yes. All are Hebrew characters.
Mike: We have a repertoire, we have proposed coding postions, and glyphs and names. It has been reviewed, propose we accept these for inclusion in the next edition of 10646.
Stefan: Israel would prefer to have this processed as a pDAM for inclusion in the standard.
RESOLUTION: Accept. Editorial instruction. (similar to DONG symbol for Vietnam- M27.8).
Bruce: Where we have already assigned a code position, we can process them all together as a single pDAM.
------new resolution on pDAM-6.
6.4.4Mongolia: Mongolian character set proposal: N 1226
N1226 was sent in from TC 46. TC46 would like SC 2 to code Mongolian. China and Unicode consortium, and any other interested
ACTION ITEM: China is requested to consider N1226 in their work and discussion on Mongolian coding.
6.4.5China: Latest Tibetan proposal: N 1238, N 1227
Mao: China prepared a document. The Tibetan language is not the official language - Dzongkha - per the Foreign Minister of China. Work was also done in conjunction with Unicode A joint table has been prepared by China and Unicode consortium - refer to N 1238.
Asmus: Very productive discussion between UTC and Chinese delegation to UTC meeting. Productive session. Input via email from sourcess not attending the meeting also. Almost 90 to 95 percent of the comments have been accepted. There are some minor editorial corrections to be fixed.
Unicode did submit the proposal for a full letter ballot to its membership and its membership is in favour of it. More than half of them would prefer to defer coding of some of the characters. There is a difference of opinion on how these should be coded - using combinations or fully formed. Unicode would like WG2 to recognize that considerable progress has been made and a compromise has been arrived at. The request is to accept this as Category A, script accept the code positions and names and process it further.
China had submitted its first proposal in Turkey and have researched further - the joint proposal is based on almost five years of research, has been discussed among several Tibetan experts in China.
Bruce: Clarification question - the paper considered n 1159 in Geneva. It occupied almost one whole row in the BMP with some empty positions. The new proposal has about two and a half columns less.
In the notes, there is a proposal for some alternative codings of existing characters. What happened to the characters that have been removed? here were also characters that were 'symbols' such as swastika, bells etc. Some others such as stack marks etc. have also been removed.
Asmus: The missing characters were considered as possibly expressed by other means such as format effectors. They were removed as not necessary to be coded in pure character coding. Some of these characters were unified - for example, Swastika already exists. The other marks have been removed after due considereation as to whether they are necessary or not to be coded in the standard.
Michael Kung: there are some errors in the contribution.
Sato: Can you elaborate on what kinds of compromises were agreed on?
Mao: SOme characters were already encoded elsewhere. Others were very infrequently used. The characters removed on considerations on whether a character originally proposed should be included or not.
Michael Everson: The code table has blank spots in the table. The proposed code table does support Tibetan well. The original proposal was also to support other languages also. Because of insufficient research has been done on those languages, the characters were left out (leaving the holes for future resurrection / addition of characters).
Shibano: Are there any rules for combining characters?
Ksar: Is there enough information in this document to enable the editor to be able prepare a draft amendment on Tibetan? Are the notes at the end of the table to be included in the pDAM.
Bruce: The document does not have enough information to proceed. There are combining characters in the document - we need to classify them into level 2 or 3. Annex B contains a list of all combining characters, and another list of characters which are not allowed in level 2. There is still some more work to be done. Why are there holes in the code table? Why cannot characters from column xxcx be not coded in the empty code positions.
Michael Everson: It would be a simple task to provide the editor what is needed based on all the information that is available. It will be unnecessary for us to delay the submission.
Keld: The proposal summary form N 1202 has to be updated.
Michel Suignard: US delegation endorses the document and would like to support this. This is anew collection. Does it take an entire row? The collection should show only those used.
Amus: Holes in columns are caused by different reasons. One is the correspondence between characters like xx40 and xx90. Part of the experts agreement on this topic is to leave space for those characters that are deferred but to be included in these locations. Proposed to be coded in locations 0F00 to 0FBF, in Row 0F.
Asmus: A new code table will be proposed - there are 37 holes now, it may be reduced by reallocating some of column C characters in other locations. There will be an explanatory note to address the holes in the contiguous space.
China: The column 1 - some of these characters are reserved for future mapping. It is also kept for expansion.
Jurgen: The table has been arranged the way it is presented, for some reason.
Zhang: Tibetan colleagues appreciate WG2 acceptance of the repertoire. The coding proposal will be optimized removing the vacant positions in the current proposal and a modified version will be proposed for consideration by WG 2's editor. If there are any vacant positions explanatory notes will be provided.
ACTION ITEM: China, Michael Everson, Asmus - to provide the necessary material in the form of a proposed draft for pDAM to assist the editor to prepare the pDAM for further processing.
RESOLUTION: We accept the tibetan repertoire. Editor is instructed to prepare the pDAM based on the draft pDAM on Tibetan, in document N xxxx.
6.4.6China: Latest proposal for Uyghur, Kazakh and Kirghiz in Arabic script: N 1225
N 1225 - Professor Slamu presented.
The proposal is to supplement existing Arabic characters to support Uighur, Kazakh and Kirghiz.
Uighur Hamza in Table 15, and 12 variant appearances in Table 114 for Kazakh and Kirghiz. The standalone froms are included but their use alone causes ambiguity for Kazakh. FBC3 to FBCE in table 114 are proposed for coding the proposed characters.