INCITS /
L2 ANNUAL REPORT
Covering
the Period
from June 2005 through May 2006
Title of INCITS Subgroup L2: Character Sets and Internationalization
June 15,
2006
L2 Website (Password
Protected)
Link to L2 Projects
List on
INCITS Website
Other
administrative information
L2 is the US-TAG for
character
sets (JTC1/SC2). The main activities are the development of ISO/IEC 10646
(Universal Multiple-Octet
Coded Character Set (UCS)) and ISO/IEC 14651 (International string
ordering and
comparison), which are both essential for the development of well-globalized, internationally usable systems and
applications.
It is worth mentioning that globalized
systems are
necessary for both the international and the domestic market (e.g.
global
companies, minority language requirements in the
The
number of
L2 members is presently 10—Oracle did not renew their membership. The
continued interest in L2 and stability of the membership is a testimony
to the
relevance of ISO/IEC 10646 and ISO/IEC 14651, which are implemented in
an
increasing number of products. . L2 meets 4 times per year.
L2 works very
closely with the
Unicode® Consortium. All technical meetings are co-located with the
Unicode
Technical Committee meetings, which is economical since most of the
members of
L2 are also members of the Unicode Consortium and the subject matters
overlap
widely.
The work on ISO/IEC
10646:2003
continues on schedule. Amendments 1 and 2 were successfully
completed;
the first is published, the second is nearing publication. Amendment 3
was
initiated, to cover scripts such as Lepcha,
Ol Chiki, Saurashtra,
and Vai, as well as improve the support of
already
included scripts; there
has been one round of PDAM ballot, another is under way.
The
work on
ISO/IEC 14651 (International String Ordering) is also on schedule. This
work
closely tracks the development of ISO/IEC 10646. A new revision was
initiated
to synchronize with Amendments 1 and 2 of 10646.
The
·
Amendments
1 and 2
to ISO/IEC 10646:2003 have been completed
·
Amendment
3 to ISO/IEC
10646:2003 was initiated
·
a revision of ISO/IEC
14651:2001 was
initiated
·
Passage
of the PDAM3
to ISO 10646:2003
·
Maintaining
synchronization with the Unicode Standard, which is widely implemented,
is
crucial. This is achieved through co-location of technical meetings and
strong
liaison activities. ISO/IEC 10646:2003, Amendment 2 will be in
sync with
the next edition of the Unicode Standard (5.0) which is expected to be
published this fall.
·
Maintaining
synchronization between ISO/IEC 14651 and the Unicode Collation
Algorithm will
also be crucial moving forward.
·
Additionally,
fending off new proposals for new character sets (especially from
emerging
markets and
·
Prioritize
the
encoding of new scripts according to market demands and technical
readiness,
including fonts.
.
Transition from legacy character sets to UCS in emerging markets
·
Continued
unreasonable requests for pre-composed characters, especially in the
Indic
·
Continued
new
requirements from East Asia, e.g., compliance with an ever-increasing
set of
new character sets which contain characters not yet included in 10646
(e.g.,
new versions of HKSCS, Big-5).
|
#201 |
August 16-19,
2005 |
Redmond
(Microsoft) |
|
#202 |
November 1-4,
2005 |
|
|
#203 |
February 2-9,
2006 |
|
|
#204 |
May 16-19, 2006 |
|
|
#205 |
August 8-11,
2006 |
|
|
#206 |
November 7-10,
2006 |
|
|
#207 |
February 6-9,
2007 |
|
|
#208 |
May 15-18, 2007 |
|
Liaison
Representatives to L2:
|
|
Committee |
Representative |
|
FCC |
Federal
Communications Commission |
D.
Draper-Campbell |
|
NISO (Z39) |
National
Information Standards Organization |
S. McCallum |
|
TC46/SC4/WG1 |
|
R. Barry |
|
J4 |
COBOL |
A. Bennett |
|
SC22/WG4 |
COBOL |
A. Bennett |
|
|
Committee |
Representative |
|
JTC1/SC2 |
Character Sets
and Information Coding |
M. Suignard |
|
SC2/WG2 |
Universal
Coded Character Set |
M. Suignard |
|
NISO (Z39) |
National
Information Standards Organization |
J. Aliprand |
|
WG2/IRG |
Ideographic Rapporteur Group |
J. Jenkins |
Significant
activities with
liaisons:
·
WG2/IRG:
L2
continues to work with the IRG to develop the most workable set of CJK
(Chinese-Japanese-Korean) characters for ISO/IEC 10646. The liaison
work
includes locating quality fonts for the standard, proposing new
characters as
needed and reviewing requests from the IRG. L2’s John Jenkins
continues to serve as the
Membership list from INCITS database
a. Officers.
Present Officers:
|
Position |
Name |
Organization |
Training
Date |
|
Chair |
Eric Muller |
Adobe |
3/08/06 |
|
Vice Chair |
Lisa Moore |
|
7/17/00 |
|
International
Representative |
|
Microsoft |
7/15/03 |
|
Vocabulary |
Open |
|
|
In
January,
Eric Muller succeeded to Cathy Wissink as
Chair (many
thanks to Cathy for her term of service and help in transitioning).
b. Membership.
Membership: L2 presently has 10
members: Adobe Systems;
Apple Computer, Inc.; Hewlett-Packard Company;
Changes since last
year: Oracle
did not renew their membership.
It is expected that
Google
will join L2 shortly.
The membership is
more or less
stable, due in part to the members’ continued success in justifying
participation to their companies. The economy continues to
have a
significant dampening effect on standards participation.
Future
trends.
Market relevance
of
standards area: The
market relevance for this area of standardization (character sets and
internationalization) continues to be great. Most major software
companies make
a significant portion of their profits from outside of the
Emerging markets
(e.g., SE
Asia,
Other administrative
information.
None; L2 does not
collect or
disburse funds.
Regards
Eric Muller, L2 chair