Bug#111268: Svenska språknämnden is a preferrable authority for Swedish as a language

["Göran Uddeborg" <goeran@uddeborg.se>]

Keld Jørn Simonsen writes:
> What I meant is that the specific standards overrules the more
> general standards. The specification from SIS is directly addressed
> towards POSIX locales, which is what we are talking about here,
> while Svenska Språknämnden is more generic.

Ok, I follow you now.

> > Is there a SIS standard for dates too, or are you referring to the ITS
> > standard mentioned previously?  What is the number?
> 
> Yes, there is a SIS standard for dates, I believe it is SIS/ISO 8601.

But that is the ISO standard, not a specific Swedish standard.

Then, on what do you base that this is meant for locales?  It is an
international standard, meant in particular to define a format to
avoid confusion for dates when they may cross an international border.
(First paragraph in the introduction.)  Also note in section 1 Scope:
"This International Standard is applicable whenever dates and times
are included in information interchange."

While ISO 8601 is a good standard to use in many cases, and I often
do, for me it is quite opposite of a locale.  A locale is meant for
information to be adapted to a particular country/language.  If
information might need to be interpreted in more than one locale, it
should not be localised to one of them, it should use the C locale.
(Or the program should not do setlocale(), if it is a program which
always is used in such a context.)

> As you may know I am a Dane living in Denmark,

I knew that much.

> but only 3 swedish miles from one of
> the bigger Swedish cities, Malmö.

I assumed something like that.

> The request was to change it to 12:34 and my recommendation was to allow
> it. I could ask the SSLUG user group what they want, we are in the long
> run trying to satisfy users, nicht wahr, eller hur:-)

Sure!  I'm one user!  I vote for 12.34, for the reasons I've
mentioned. :-)

I'm a bit afraid a group like SSLUG, with much technically oriented
people, would not be representative for the population at large, which
I think the locale should aim for.  But go ahead and ask them anyway.

(I'm afraid my Danish is not good enough to correctly end this letter
your language.)