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Re: Springer-Verlag's comments on STIX

thanks very much for the comments, j"org.
they have come at a very opportune time -- i am busily working with
representatives of the unicode technical committee and iso sc2/wg2
to tighten up our proposal so that it is as non-controversial as
possible.

a report on that would be in order.  i shall try to be brief.

1. they have requested, and i have agreed, that the phonetic symbols
   be excluded (except for the very few items that can be demonstrated
   to be used as math symbols); on of the utc members who is working with
   me on this is a linguist by training, and he is interested in pursuing
   this part of the collection, but separately from the math symbols.
   j"org, since your interests also lie in this area, maybe you would
   be interested to participate in this separate work.

2. there is some controversy about the separate alphabets; this requires
   more discussion.  main contact from the utc, murray sargent, is very
   supportive of the principle that we can't count on browser distributors
   to support all the different fonts that would be needed, so some clear
   unicode mechanism must be provided to retain the necessary distinctions.
   it's the mechanism that's mostly under discussion -- i will report
   further when the possibilities become more clearly defined.

3. i've been informed that symbols such as plusdot, which are simply
   variations on symbols already in unicode, are not controversial,
   and will need no justification other than that they are in use.
   the scope of this category needs to be tied down more tightly, but
   i'm encouraged that exhaustive documentation won't be required.
   that means any continued research can be dedicated to the truly
   novel and controversial items.

4. patrick left for his study leave year without regenerating the html
   and pdf versions of the tables from my updated master, and i don't
   have the facilities to do that easily myself.  murray sargent is
   creating files for reference by the utc; i don't know whether they
   can be made available to the stix workers, but i will try to get
   that accesss.

5. the next wg2 meeting will take place in late september.  if murray is
   able to take a "finished" proposal into that meeting, he is confident
   that it will be adopted, and become part of unicode 3.0.

i will inform murray and the others of the utc subgroup that springer
has provided this new information, and i will be updating the tables
accordingly.  j"org -- your list very clearly comprises only the items
that exhibit some differences from what was there already.  would it
be possible for you to provide also a list of the symbols you use that
have the same names as what's already there?  there's some safety in
numbers of publishers represented here.

i will be attending the tug meeting, and out of town from august 14-23.
i may or may not have e-mail access during that time, but in any event,
i have duties there for the tug board and tugboat that will prevent me
from working on this during that time.  however, if any of you will be
at the meeting, i'll be happy to discuss the work and progress with you.
							-- bb