On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 03:57:32AM +0900, Noriyuki Soda wrote:
>David Dawes <dawes@XFree86.Org> wrote:
>> We try to take backward compatibility seriously.  That issue was
>> probably my main reservation I personally had about including the
>> Xutf8 interfaces.  If it is eventually decided that there is a
>> better way of providing the funtionality they provide, then we'll
>> need to keep them around for a while for compatibility reasons.
>> My personal opinion is that it was worth doing it in this case.
>
>Sigh.
>
>As I repeatedly said here, the feature that Xutf8 APIs provide 
>can be provided by already existing Xwc/Xmb APIs by the following 
>code fragment:
>	current_locale = setlocale(LC_CTYPE, NULL);
>	setlocale(LC_CTYPE, NAME_OF_en_US_UTF_8_locale);
>	... create Unicode FontSet here ...
>	setlocale(LC_CTYPE, current_locale);

That's one side of the story.  Not everyone agrees that this is the case.

>Portable programs should use this code rather than newly introduced
>worthless Xutf8 APIs.
>In other words, there is no need to introduce new APIs like Xutf8*,
>the things should be done is (as I repeatedly said) to make usable
>UTF-8 X_LOCALE for systems which don't have working UTF-8 system
>locale (and perhaps, adding very few new APIs which have explict 
>locale argument for multi-thread multi-locale programs).
>
>Despite your statement, apparently the XFree86 project doesn't 
>really care about compatibilty and portablitity seriously, if the 
>project really take care of compatitibility, the project must
>not add new APIs immediately before the release with ignoring
>all objections.

XFree86 has contained experimental interfaces before, and it probably
will again.  There are XFree86-specific Xserver extensions, for
example.  The alternative is to stagnate.  I'd like to know why
this discussion didn't happen when the interfaces were proposed
rather than at the last minute before a release?  Maybe some people
here aren't used to seeing proposals implemented and made available
in a short space of time.  Isn't that better than debating it for
months/years, then eventually doing nothing because of lack of
agreement? If there had been some debate about the proposal at the
time it was made, maybe things would have worked out differently.

>I must say the XFree86 project now seems to lack technical ability 
>and responsibility about internatinalization area. Probably we 
>should create new Open Source X11 project for X client side.

You're entitled to your opinion.

David
--
David Dawes                                      Email: dawes@XFree86.org
Founder/President, The XFree86 Project, Inc      Phone: +1 510 687 6857
http://www.xfree86.org/                          Fax:   +61 2 9897 3755