This comment was discussed by the joint working group and the decision was 
announced in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-
comments/2004Oct/0026.html

The XSL and XML Query Working Groups decided to add a byte-order-mark parameter 
to the Serialization specification to control whether a Byte Order Mark is 
written.  The actual byte order used is implementation-dependent.  If the 
concept of a Byte Order Mark does not make sense for the particular encoding 
selected, the byte-order-mark parameter is ignored.

Please confirm if this resolution is acceptable to the working group.

thanks,
Joanne

(In reply to comment #1)
> This comment was discussed by the joint working group and the decision was 
> announced in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-qt-
> comments/2004Oct/0026.html
> 
> The XSL and XML Query Working Groups decided to add a byte-order-mark parameter 
> to the Serialization specification to control whether a Byte Order Mark is 
> written.  The actual byte order used is implementation-dependent.  If the 
> concept of a Byte Order Mark does not make sense for the particular encoding 
> selected, the byte-order-mark parameter is ignored.
> 
> Please confirm if this resolution is acceptable to the working group.
> 
> thanks,
> Joanne

It is acceptable to me. Unfortunatley that's all I can tell you at the moment,
maybe more next week (which is too late I guess).
Felix Sasaki

consensus of the i18n-core-wg, telecon 27 may 2005: the i18n-core-wg decided to
reopen this comment. Please be more specific. i.e.    
 *  XML/XHTML: UTF-16: BOM required; UTF-8: may be used.
 * HTML/text: UTF-16: BOM recommended; UTF-8: may be used.

Thank you for your additional comment; we agree that the text could
be clearer, and accepted your comment.

The XSL and XQuery WG rejected the suggested resolution because requiring
BOM for UTF-16 was found undesirable for the following reasons:
1.  BOM is not permitted for UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE, UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE
    [see FAQ on Unicode.org Web site]
2.  BOM may be undesirable for serializing XML fragments
3.  implementation environment or higher level protocols may prohibit BOM
However, the WG would like to clarify this sentence "If the concept of a
Byte Order Mark is not meaningful ...".  The WGs propose the following
rewording to section 3 of the Serialization specification:

One of the enumerated values yes or no. This parameter indicates whether
the serialized sequence of octets is to be preceded by a Byte Order Mark.
(See Section 5.1 of [Unicode Encoding].) The actual octet order used is
implementation-dependent.

Replace "If the concept of a
Byte Order Mark is not meaningful in connection with the value of
the encoding parameter, the byte-order-mark parameter is ignored."
with the following text:
"If the encoding defines no Byte Order Mark, or if the Byte Order Mark is
prohibited for the specific Unicode encoding or implementation environment, then
this parameter is ignored."

I have closed the bug in Bugzilla; if the resolution is not acceptable, please
re-open this issue and add appropriate comments.  If we don't hear to the
contrary within two weeks we'll assume you are satisfied.