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Re: Status of UTF-8 Debian changelogs



On Thu, 2003-06-05 at 16:40, Josip Rodin wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 02:58:12PM -0400, Colin Walters wrote:
> > The problem is that we have no way to know what encoding an individual
> > Debian Changelog entry is in.
> 
> The problem is that my point entirely flew over your head. The point was,
> as usual, that Policy is not designed to be a stick to beat people with,
> and that it does not have to precede implementation.

You certainly had a strange way of stating this; your initial reply
seemed to focus on the size of the code space of the character sets.

Anyways, you could consider this as already mostly implemented; the vast
majority of changelogs are pure ASCII; there's only a few people using
ISO-8859-x and UTF-8.  Given the disadvantages of the former, we should
standardize on the latter, and that's what this policy amendment is all
about.

> You can already complain at people who use e.g. Latin 1 in changelogs. Once
> a released version of the Policy manual gets a shiny and bright new sentence
> saying "Use Unicode" (just in a roundabout, somewhat patronizing kind of
> way), 

I see no reason for it to be either roundabout or patronizing; perhaps
you could suggest an alternative wording that would remove these
perceived qualities?

> the only thing that will change is that if someone complains at people
> who use UTF-8 in changelogs, a new retort will be available, "THE POLICY
> MADE ME DO IT!!1!", or similar.

Why would someone complain?

> Oh, and insert another standard rant here on how the fact something hasn't
> been done does not automatically imply that those who haven't done it are
> obstructionist sadistic bastards.

I never implied such, or if I did it was certainly not my intention.  I
think you've been doing a great job as a policy editor, and I assume
that not adding this amendment was just an oversight.  



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