Unicode Format for Network Interchange
draft-klensin-net-utf8-09

[Ballot comment]
Christian Vogt's review:

This document specifies a character encoding that is to be used in new protocols.  The encoding is based on Unicode.

High-level comment:  I am in general skeptical about defining variant N+1 of a mechanism in order to eliminate the confusion that the N+1 existing variants may have caused.  The same applies in the case of this document:  It defines "Net-Unicode" to get rid of the diversity of existing Unicode encodings (UTF-8, -16, and -32).

Therefore, if Net-Unicode was to be the encoding standard of the future rather than just "yet another" Unicode variant, it should have clear advantages over existing variants.  These should be explicated in the document in a prominent position.

Technical:  Section 2 ("Net-Unicode Definition") is confusing with respect to which characters are allowed and which not.  Many of its rules do not give clear guidance.  E.g., "should be avoided", "requires care", "apply with caution", "use is questionable".  Suggestion:  Limit this section to clear "must's" and "must not's", and discuss caveats afterwards.

From an editorial standpoint, this document is well written and very nice to read.

[Ballot comment]
Last paragraph of section 1.1:

"In circumstances in which there is a choice, use of Unicode and the text encoding specified here is preferred to the double-byte encoding of "extended ASCII" [RFC0698] or the assorted per-language or per-country character coding systems and SHOULD be used."

I'm guessing the original intent is that the use of what's specified here SHOULD be used, but the sentence probably got mangled in editing... how about

"Whenever there is a choice, Unicode SHOULD be used with the text encoding specified here.  This combination is preferred to the double-byte encoding of 'extende ASCII' [RFC0698] or the assorted per-language or per-country character coding systems."

  (1.a)  Who is the Document Shepherd for this document?  Has the
          Document Shepherd personally reviewed this version of the
          document and, in particular, does he or she believe this
          version is ready for forwarding to the IESG for publication?

AD is shepherding.  Yes.

  (1.b)  Has the document had adequate review both from key WG members
          and from key non-WG members?  Does the Document Shepherd have
          any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that
          have been performed?

Extensive review on apps-discuss.

  (1.c)  Does the Document Shepherd have concerns that the document
          needs more review from a particular or broader perspective,
          e.g., security, operational complexity, someone familiar with
          AAA, internationalization or XML?

No.

  (1.d)  Does the Document Shepherd have any specific concerns or
          issues with this document that the Responsible Area Director
          and/or the IESG should be aware of?  For example, perhaps he
          or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of the document, or
          has concerns whether there really is a need for it.  In any
          event, if the WG has discussed those issues and has indicated
          that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those
          concerns here.  Has an IPR disclosure related to this document
          been filed?  If so, please include a reference to the
          disclosure and summarize the WG discussion and conclusion on
          this issue.

No.

  (1.e)  How solid is the WG consensus behind this document?  Does it
          represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with
          others being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and
          agree with it?

Apps discuss seems comfortable with this version, although there is
some discomfort with the specific set of permitted control characters
and their behavior

  (1.f)  Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
          discontent?  If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in
          separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director.  (It
          should be in a separate email because this questionnaire is
          entered into the ID Tracker.)

No.

  (1.g)  Has the Document Shepherd personally verified that the
          document satisfies all ID nits?  (See
          http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html and
          http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/).  Boilerplate checks are
          not enough; this check needs to be thorough.  Has the document
          met all formal review criteria it needs to, such as the MIB
          Doctor, media type and URI type reviews?

Has a few minor ID nits.

  (1.h)  Has the document split its references into normative and
          informative?  Are there normative references to documents that
          are not ready for advancement or are otherwise in an unclear
          state?  If such normative references exist, what is the
          strategy for their completion?  Are there normative references
          that are downward references, as described in [RFC3967]?  If
          so, list these downward references to support the Area
          Director in the Last Call procedure for them [RFC3967].

Split: yes.  No normative downrefs.

  (1.i)  Has the Document Shepherd verified that the document IANA
          consideration section exists and is consistent with the body
          of the document?  If the document specifies protocol
          extensions, are reservations requested in appropriate IANA
          registries?  Are the IANA registries clearly identified?  If
          the document creates a new registry, does it define the
          proposed initial contents of the registry and an allocation
          procedure for future registrations?  Does it suggest a
          reasonable name for the new registry?  See [RFC2434].  If the
          document describes an Expert Review process has Shepherd
          conferred with the Responsible Area Director so that the IESG
          can appoint the needed Expert during the IESG Evaluation?

Document is missing IANA considerations section, but has no IANA
considerations.  A useless boilerplate IANA considerations section will
have to be added prior to IESG review because our process requires it.
However, that section will best be deleted prior to publication.  This
will waste many people's time with no benefit to anyone, of course.

  (1.j)  Has the Document Shepherd verified that sections of the
          document that are written in a formal language, such as XML
          code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc., validate correctly in
          an automated checker?

Document has no formal language.  The reference to 4234 is for notation
use only and not subject to automated checking.

There was feedback on 06 on apps-discuss.  Were you planning a revision to address that feedback, or would you like me to last call -06 and treat the apps-discuss feedback in the same bag with any IETF last call comments?