SS> I regret that they were so precipitously put into the XFree86
SS> release, and partially blame myself for not having pushed hard
SS> enough on the people over whom I have influence, to have this
SS> discussion before they appeared in the release.

Dear Mr. Swales,

With all due respect, I would like to object to the term
``precipitously'' as you have used it.

The design of the UTF8_STRING property type was first done in May and
June 1999, i.e. over a year and a half ago.  The first implementation
of UTF8_STRING appeared in version 110 of Thomas Dickey's XTerm, which
was privately released with XFree86 3.9Pv on 4 July 1999.  A later
version was released to the wide public with XFree86 3.9.15 on 19 July
2000.

The UTF8_STRING draft has been continuously updated on the web.  It
was sent to the unicode@unicode.org list twice in mid 1999.  It was
mentioned on the X.Org internationalisation list twice earlier this
year; the latest mention was in a message by Markus Kuhn dated 31
October 2000 under the heading ``Open Unicode Issues under X11''.

During that time, I did receive an acknowledgment from you.  There
have, however, been no comments of a technical nature except from
XFree86 members.

As to the need to extend the Xlib property conversion routines, this
was discussed on at least two occasions on the i18n@xfree86.org
mailing list over the last year.  This is a public mailing list to
which a number of X.Org members are subscribed.  I have not kept a
precise record of these discussions.  (I do acknowledge the fact that
these discussions were not forwarded to the X.Org mailing list.  With
hindsight, this was a mistake.)

I do realise that most members of the X.Org I18N working group are
very busy indeed, and I really don't want to blame anyone for the
delays described above.  But you cannot expect us, after over a year
and a half, to still wait for your acknowledgement.

With respectful regards,

                                        Juliusz Chroboczek


P.S. I apologise for the massive crossposting, but I am just following
Mr. Swales' lead.  I suggest that i18n@xfree86.org is the proper place
to follow up.