I have not seen a posting from you that would answer Tex's questions. The
entire post was inflammatory, and given the fact that you do apparently
associate it with your own feelings vis-a-vis French/English in Quebec it
even becomes to some degree self-serving.
[Alain] You have the right to think so. Everytime somebody posts a document, there is always a message. So to a certain poiut we can say -- even in your case -- that any message sent by somebody is self-serving.
[Michael]
So, lets try again, shall we? :-)
For the record, please count me in as one of those who was offended
personally (as discussed earlier by Rick).
1) Why is this pertinent to the Unicode list?
[Alain] Reread this (the reason why I sent it to the list):
[unknow author]
The Chinese, along with many
other Asians wonder why some people dare talk about an international Internet
as long as the Chinese have to type addresses in Latin characters. So, they
have devised their own addressing system that uses ideograms. Some experts
think that as long as the Unicode standard does not become universal, there is
a distinct risk for various countries to go their own way for domain addresses
and other �details� important enough to give birth to separate networks that
will no longer be cross-communication compatible. Therefore,
internationalization must permit people to fully localize not only contents
but
also interfaces. If we had forgotten all about it, the Internet is here to
remind us that the only thing that truly deserves to be qualified
�international� can only transcend national borders because everyone would
tend
to make it his own.
[Michael]
2) What is it you are asking Unicode to keep doing or stop doing (which will
be clearer once you answer #1).
[Alain] I had no intent of asking anything, but since you provoke me, I found something with which I wholeheartedly agree:
International forums and discussion groups should welcome contributions in all
languages if their participants were really seeking the best and most
interesting contributions. [...] If people want the best
from the Internet, they have to invite back the best by first realizing that
original thoughts automatically entail the use of original modes of
expression.
I know... You don't want to hear about it. It leads to total chaos. Like the actual world. And Unicode helps the world keeping this chaos ("chaos" being one possible intepretation, not mine, as I think the opposite: nature diversity is the most divine attribute of the universe and if Babel had not existed we should have invented it, as otherwise we'd better be like molecules of a same, dull gas).
Alain LaBont�
Qu�bec
