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Bug#99324: marked as done (Default charset should be UTF-8)

Your message dated Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:11:15 -0700
with message-id <[🔎] 877id2v3gc.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu>
and subject line Rejected: Bug#99324: Default charset should be UTF-8
has caused the Debian Bug report #99324,
regarding Default charset should be UTF-8
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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immediately.)


-- 
99324: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=99324
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.5.4.0
Severity: wishlist

I think Debian should start to move into using UTF-8 by default everywhere.


Rationale:

The current 'standard' default character set is ISO-8859-1. This works fine
most of the time, however, it causes some problems. For instance, most of the
documentation is in ISO-8859-1 -- except the ones which are in languages that
need another charset. If a user is fluent in two languages which needs
incompatible charsets, he would have to keep switching charsets all the time.
To avoid this, a single charset which works for all languages should be used by
default.

Using UTF-8 by default in Debian would also have the added side benefit of
forcing all programs to properly handle variable-length multibyte charsets.

It could also be possible to add an UTF-8 encoded version for all locales
(could be a simple matter of changing the commented defaults in the list of
 locales). Having a single charset means that people using wildly different
charsets could be able to read/edit the same text files without having to
recode them.

Using UTF-8 in the name of files means that nobody's file name would look like
gibberish for someone else just because the charsets being used are different.

Last but not least, someone has to take the lead and be the first to do it.
Debian has done it before in things like consistent keyboard handling. The
structure of Debian makes it the ideal place to initiatives which touch a lot
of things like this one.

For people who aren't using UTF-8, if /usr/doc is consistently coded in UTF8,
it'd be possible to use Apache tricks to force its enconding as UTF-8 when
viewed using the http://localhost/doc/ default URL.

-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux flower 2.4.5 #1 Tue May 29 18:09:30 BRT 2001 i686
Locale: LANG=en_US.ISO8859-1, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages debian-policy depends on:
ii  fileutils                     4.1-2      GNU file management utilities.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
This bug proposes adding to Policy a requirement that Debian use UTF-8
everywhere in all files and file names and as the default character set
for all locales.  It has been open for many years in part because it's
implications are so widespread as to be difficult to act on and in part
because non-UTF-8 character sets are still in preferred use in some
locales and it's not clear whether UTF-8 will ever completely replace
other character sets for some locales (particularly Asian languages).

I am therefore rejecting this proposal at this time as premature.  We have
been converting parts of the distribution to use UTF-8 and those more
limited proposals will remain open (#99933, #143941, #241333, #246016).  I
hope to resolve many of them with the next release of Policy, particularly
the ones that have already been implemented in practice.

If you disagree with the rejection of this proposal for reasons that
weren't raised in the prior bug discussion, please raise them in this bug.
If you disagree with the rejection of this proposal for reasons already
raised in the discussion, the path of appeal for a Policy proposal
rejection is to the tech-ctte.  See http://www.debian.org/devel/tech-ctte
for how to make an appeal to the tech-ctte.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

--- End Message ---
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