Network Working Group K. Whistler Internet-Draft Sybase, Inc. Updates: 2482 (if approved) G. Adams Intended status: Standards Track Skynav (Phil), Inc. Expires: December 16, 2010 M. Duerst Aoyama Gakuin University R. Presuhn, Ed. J. Klensin June 14, 2010 Deprecating Language Tag Characters: RFC 2482 is Historic draft-presuhn-rfc2482-historic-00.txt Abstract RFC 2482, Language Tagging in Unicode Plain Text, described a mechanism for using special Unicode language tag characters to identify languages when needed without more general markup such as that provided by XML. The Unicode Consortium has deprecated that facility and strongly recommends against its use. RFC 2482 should be moved to Historic to reduce the possibility that Internet implementers would consider that system an appropriate mechanism for identifying languages. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on December 16, 2010. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Whistler, et al. Expires December 16, 2010 [Page 1] Internet-Draft RFC 2482 to Historic June 2010 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Whistler, et al. Expires December 16, 2010 [Page 2] Internet-Draft RFC 2482 to Historic June 2010 1. Introduction RFC 2482, Language Tagging in Unicode Plain Text [RFC2482], described a mechanism for using special Unicode language tag characters to identify languages when needed. It was an idea whose time never quite came. It has been superseded by whole-transaction language identification such as the MIME Content-language header [RFC3282] and more general markup mechanisms such as those provided by XML. The Unicode Consortium has deprecated the language tag character facility and strongly recommends against its use. RFC 2482 should be moved to Historic to reduce the possibility that Internet implementers would consider that tagging system an appropriate mechanism for identifying languages. A discussion of the status of the language tag characters and their applicability appears in Section 16.9 of the Unicode Standard [Unicode52]. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. 2. Action RFC 2482 is deprecated and reclassified as Historic. Internet protocols and Standards-track documents SHOULD NOT use the facilities described in that document. 3. IANA Considerations [RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication.] This memo includes no requests to or actions for IANA. 4. Security Considerations By deprecating RFC 2482, we eliminate a facility that is no longer encouraged and supported by the Unicode Consortium and that may have been slightly risky in use if misinterpreted or if expectations of support were not met. So, if this action has any effect on Internet security at all, it should be positive. 5. References Whistler, et al. Expires December 16, 2010 [Page 3] Internet-Draft RFC 2482 to Historic June 2010 5.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2482] Whistler, K. and G. Adams, "Language Tagging in Unicode Plain Text", RFC 2482, January 1999. [Unicode52] The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard, Version 5.2.0, defined by:, "The Unicode Standard, Version 5.2.0", (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium, 2009. ISBN 978-1-936213-00-9)., . 5.2. Informative References [RFC3282] Alvestrand, H., "Content Language Headers", RFC 3282, May 2002. Authors' Addresses Kenneth Whistler Sybase, Inc. One Sybase Dr. Dublin, CA 94568 USA Phone: +1 925 236 7429 Email: kenw@sybase.com Glenn Adams Skynav (Phil), Inc. Lot 14 Boton Area Subic Bay Freeport Zone 2222 Philippines Phone: Email: glenn@skynav.com Whistler, et al. Expires December 16, 2010 [Page 4] Internet-Draft RFC 2482 to Historic June 2010 Martin Duerst Aoyama Gakuin University 5-10-1 Fuchinobe Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8558 Japan Phone: +81 42 759 6329 Fax: +81 42 759 6495 Email: duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp Randy Presuhn (editor) San Jose, CA 95120 USA Phone: Email: randy_presuhn@mindspring.com John C Klensin 1770 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 322 Cambridge, MA 02140 USA Phone: +1 617 245 1457 Email: john+ietf@jck.com Whistler, et al. Expires December 16, 2010 [Page 5]