A NOTE has been added to this issue. ====================================================================== https://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1793 ====================================================================== Reported By: steffen Assigned To: ====================================================================== Project: 1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2 Issue ID: 1793 Category: Front Matter Type: Enhancement Request Severity: Editorial Priority: normal Status: New Name: steffen Organization: User Reference: Section: many Page Number: many Line Number: many Interp Status: --- Final Accepted Text: ====================================================================== Date Submitted: 2023-12-19 02:02 UTC Last Modified: 2024-01-04 22:02 UTC ====================================================================== Summary: Streamline US-ASCII character set name ======================================================================
---------------------------------------------------------------------- (0006615) steffen (reporter) - 2024-01-04 22:02 https://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=1793#c6615 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ooooh, careful with that axe -- greetings to the big apple!!! I quote art(at)ietf.org and John C. Klensin, he will excuse this. (And point out that _i_ do not follow him.) Starting with IANA and copying the charsets list, as Martin suggests, is almost certainly a good step at this stage (I'm copying IANS on this note to avoid possible confusion). However, to fill in the historical blank: the omission was almost certainly deliberate (I vaguely recall being part of the discussion). While I found the idea of "US-ASCII" obnoxious (and still do -- after all, the "A" in ASCII does not stand for "Antarctic" or a variety of other options), it was very common practice in the 1990s to use the term "ASCII" to refer to a variety of character sets that used the high order bit of an octet (including ISO 8859 -- the omission of "-1" is deliberate) and even used "ASCII" to refer to assorted national language variations and national variations on ISO 646. So "ASCII" was avoided because it was seriously ambiguous. There is evidence that the confusion continues: the definition of IBM CP 367 ("IBM367" and "cp367" in the IANA registry) [1] as a synonym for "US-ASCII" is incorrect or at least sketchy because it lists iso-646.irv:1983 as another synonym and ISO 646 IRV did not match ASCII until 1991 [2] because, prior to that, the "international currency symbol" was used instead of ASCII's dollar sign. That isn't proof but does suggest that the confusion we say in the 1990s has not completely disappeared. So, coming back to Steffen's suggestion, I strongly recommend against adding "ASCII" to the alias list without an explanation and warning about the ambiguity. And the current registry arrangement does not allow for that sort of note although maybe it should. Issue History Date Modified Username Field Change ====================================================================== 2023-12-19 02:02 steffen New Issue 2023-12-19 02:02 steffen Name => steffen 2023-12-19 02:02 steffen Section => many 2023-12-19 02:02 steffen Page Number => many 2023-12-19 02:02 steffen Line Number => many 2024-01-04 16:05 shware_systems Note Added: 0006613 2024-01-04 22:02 steffen Note Added: 0006615 ======================================================================
