Position Statement

concerning the W3C i18n Workshop, 2002-02-01

Author: Katsuhiko Momoi

Organization: Netscape Communications

Date: January 10, 2002

I am part of the team involved in the commercial browser development project based on the Open Source Mozilla code. Because we are not working in a closed environment, our internationalization efforts necessitate interactions with non-Netscape contributors. Open interactions via newsgroups, mailing lists and bug database provide excellent opportunities to reflect wishes of contributors around the world responsively and expeditiously. The Mozilla project has many W3C experts participating and this has had very positive effects on the project's commitment to web standards. The following considerations arise out of our experience in this development project:

• Critical importance of internationally acceptable standards -- they provide the only neutral ground for agreement among diverse participants. Without these, a project such as Mozilla will bog down over personal preference disputes.
• This also means that such standards must be clearly defined without ambiguity.
• For internationalization, diverse participation has had many positive effects. For example,
  • Support for CSS list styles well beyond the sets listed in CSS1 and CSS2. We hope to make recommendations to CSS3 based on the code contributions.
  • Additional encoding support for language scripts not readily available in commercial browsers, e.g. Armenian, Georgian, Esperanto, etc. Such support in turn encouraged contributors to submit a definition of such script encoding to an appropriate standard body.
  • Discovery of conformance and compliance violations that would have been missed without scrutiny from diverse groups of international developers.
• For localization, the project was able to add localized versions not readily available in market-number driven commercial browser projects. For example, Malay, Estonian, Asturian, Scots, Welsh, Bosnian, etc.

• Effects of one open source model development on standards compliance relating to i18n.
• Some of the i18n/l10n accomplishments with Mozilla developments
• Review of the [I] (implementer-oriented) suggestions/guidelines contained in the recent draft of the W3C document titled "Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0" in the context of our browser development project. In particular, we want to discuss all key [I] suggestions so as to:
  • spotlight positive effects such recommendations have.
  • point out potential difficulties involved in implementing some of the suggestions
  • highlight need for a high level view of Character Model
  • raise the awareness for specific conformance tests and measures.
  • etc.

We hope to gain information and provide suggestions in the following areas:

• To provide suggestions for the future directions of i18n WG activities, e.g. improvement on conformance documentation.
• To provide feedback from an implementer's view point to the proposed recommendations on the Character Model for WWW 1.0.
• To gain knowledge of /influence potential future activities of the i18n WG in the areas that concern us.
• To learn about i18n and Web Accessibility more. The Mozilla project has basic guidelines for Accessibility i18n but we need to add more details to them in the near future.