keld@diku.UUCP (Keld J|rn Simonsen) (02/24/86)
The combined European Unix systems User Group (EUUG) and /usr/group/UK standardisation committee on international UNIX held a meeting Thursday 20th February 86 at the City conference centre in London. Two speakers presented a talk. Bj|rn Myhrhaug of INDATA A/S in Oslo, Norway spoke about standardisation in the cold. They had -20 degrees up there. He emphasised compliance to standards especially CCITT standards including the Teletext standard. CCITT is a standardisation body seldom referenced by UNIX standardisation efforts, but very viable in the real world. Bj|rn is also chairman of NUUG, the Norwegian branch of EUUG, and regretted the "pipe" in his name. The | is a letter in the Norwegian standard character set, and he expected that this standard and similar European standards will be in effect for quite a number of years in old and new terminal equipment, so UNIX had better support this. Eli Lamb of UNIX Europe Ltd presented UEL's and AT&T's current view on internationalisation (or 'localisation') of UNIX. They have a new edition of the System V Interface Definition (SVID edition II) available from the UEL office. This is in two parts and there is a separate section on future directions, including local support. The local support is to be provided by National language supplements to the UNIX kernel, a japanese supplement is already available and some European supplements are to be avaliable hopefully this year (1986). Some, but not all will be available in source form. The character sets provided will be according to AT&T's earlier 4 char set proposal, based on ASCII and ISO Latin 1 & 2. There will be no general 7-bit ISO 646 support but work is done on 7-bit support for ti-troff and C. There will also be available a System V Verification Suite (SVVS) of programs. People were encouraged to put their name on two lists: one for those intersted in information on the group's work, including a forthcoming newsletter, and another list for people who want to actively contribute to the work of the group, including the newsletter. You are welcome to mail me (mcvax!diku!keld or Keld Simonsen, DKUUG, Studiestraede 6, DK-1455 Copenhagen K, Denmark) if you want to be on any of these lists. The next meeting in the group is planned in conjunction with the EUUG conference in Florence, on April 25, 1985. More on this event will be published through various channels, including this group. Keld Simonsen, EUUG international UNIX standardisation coordinator.
jel@uel (J. Eli Lamb ) (03/11/86)
> Eli Lamb of UNIX Europe Ltd presented UEL's and AT&T's current > view on internationalisation (or 'localisation') of UNIX. > They have a new edition of the System V Interface Definition > and there is a separate section on future directions, including > local support. Keld is right. I posted an early draft of the "Future Directions" in this news group. More thinking has been done and AT&T have carefully laid out what we think is a clear but prudent path. Understanding that statement of direction should help the community proceed on this problem in a cohesive way. Issue 2 of the SVID can be obtained from UEL at the address below (you can always just mail {mcvax!ukc!}uel!uel). In addition to the words on future directions, it has defined more extensions, fixed some errors, and added (wonderful!) indices. J. Eli Lamb {mcvax!ukc!}uel!jel Technical Support Manager UNIX Europe Limited, phone: +44 1 785-6972 27A Carlton Drive, fax: +44 1 785-6916 London SW15 2BS, UK telex: 914054 UNIXTM G