Re: [ga] A vote of support for the GA
On 14:06 24/08/2007, Danny Younger said: http://community.livejournal.com/linguaphiles/3391885.html Danny, The Internet is an international success because it is rustic, robust, and simple as a system, in symbiosis with its Unix/Linux hosts. This was true for its contemporaries: Tymshare, GE, IBM which also had a network and an OS. Why Internet took time and grew larger is that this was obtained at the cost of skipping many things, that were not mandatory to an academic time sharing system. They now call for patches. For example: no session, leading to cookies. The same, there is no way to support a Multilingual Internet. Multilingual Internet means end to end support for every languages, metalingual and semantic support. This is usually achieved in having a total separation between networking and presentation layers. For you to fully understand some vocabulary: - A language is a mind to mind/process communication protocol. - semiotics means that it uses every possible way to communicate (text, sound, symbols, gestures, music, etc.) - English "language" translates French "langue" and "langage" terms. - "Langue" is French, English, Chinese, ... - "langage" is what a computer calls a language: every relational protocol it can differentiate from another in using a corpus. - Metalingual means that everyone speaks his own language and is understood by everyone. - Semantic means that the carried information unit is semen (meaning unit) oriented. - Pragmatic means that semen must be understood into the context they are exchanged. There actually are billions of languages, each persons having several languages depending on what they do. They all have a syntax (organisation), a terminology, a semantic, a pragmatic, a script, etc. You can use an English terminology with a French semantic and a Chinese script (because they relate to the meaning more than to the sound). Metalingual and Semantic are key future industry and relational function when one wants to make sure a machine has clearly understood a human, or is to assist her mental process. Even in population of a same "langue", meaning variations between people/agents of different breed, context, ages, situation, etc. are of the essence. All what the Internet can do is "internationalization". This is because it is "IETF English inside". Only transactions in IETF English can be entirely executed in IETF English. Others transactions must be assisted/adapted. Some user education may help English mother tongue people to get familiar with "dig, lookup, from, http, etc.". The IETF/American English extension in some foreign market "dialects" formulas or customs (localization) does help too. They use local translation memory glossaries (locale files: Unicode has only 128 languages supported) and the extension of ASCII code to Unicode (internationalization). This strategy (named "globalization") is structured by a language tagging system (RFC 4646) that should help filtering the non supported languages. The whole issue is between a few local features for 128 languages and full end to end support for the 20.000+ language entities ISO 639-6 by Debbie Garside should list. By very very far Internationalization is not enough for ICAN, IETF, Unicode, etc. to address the users' expectation. There are two basic opposing options: - to constrain/delay usage long enough in the hope internationalization can establish, one can make money in selling influence and some limited optional (complex) added value (one has to test and _keep_ split [so they do not start agglomerating into a pseudo lingual presentation layer], at application level), and tying a commercial/legal complex enough network for it to stay. This is the IETF, ICANN, US Industry, etc. option. Internationalization of the e-mail LHS (left hand side) and RHS (right hand side) use different solutions (a direct violation of RFC 1958 rule of unicity - the same need should be addressed the same everywhere). The priority is on the I-UDRP and IDN(cc)TLD economics and regulations, rather than answering the many time voted, equal lingual opportunity human right. - to change the technology. This seems to be an impossible step. However, this is what IETF/IAB has to engage into in the addressing/routing. (ROAP) issue. There is obviously no commercial nor USG motivation to change the linguistic status-quo: it means splitting the technical areas of influence, and therefore the political and commercial dominance parameters. AU/US/GB are objectively allied here (at ICANN and WSIS). I have experimented (trough an ICP-3 conformant test-bed project and in confronting the IETF culture) there is actually no need [and practical and financial possibility] to change the technology (hardware and software), but to update the brainware. This means to update the way we (IETF, circles governance, and users) understand, and we (every kind of users) use the network. This is possible because: - the very nature of the TCP/IP technology. Datagrams navigate independently, this is used in routing. It can also be used in order to transparently upgrade the network layers, adding new service information into the end to end process without affecting it. If it is not supported, then the added information is just disregarded by the receiver. - the very need of a network is not end to end, but mind to mind. This is actually supported at brain to brain interfacing level. As long as the brain interface (display, loudspeaker, BCI, etc.) agent has all the necessary data and metadata it can fake the Internet missing layers. The interest is that one can deploy a Multilingual/Semantic Internet on top of the legacy Internet, offering much more sophisticated services, without ICANN being even aware of it. The real commercial/infrastructural trade-off is probably ROAP. It is not the time to add complexity right now (and I hope ICANN does not help private initiatives in the area in keeping with its non-credible policy). If ROAP is solved, we will have to investigate the solution and see how to best use it. If ROAP fails, the Internet will become the "InterNat". This would not be a good thing for many reasons, but it could also be a very good thing because it would put the focus on the NATs topologically "central" location, in the distributed intelligence continuity of the world digital ecosystem (all what is interconnected, interoperable, computable at "yes/no" logical level). This would be definitely be the end of the current Internet architecture and the emergence of a new one (and of a new commercial, governance, and ultimately world political order). The whole problem is to know who wants it and who do not want it, to know how to make the resulting metacoms to best happen, and ICANN and other's oddities not to delay them too much or even block their study and deployment. Up to now, the IAB/IETF has not decided where they stand: first they fired me because I am pioneering and protecting the end to end lingual support. Now, a few of their smartest individuals discuss it with me - this is sometimes very exciting because some are superior minds: this is just too bad they are hampered by a thinking method they never were able to adapt to the network changes. This is due to the very nature of the IETF and of its non scalable "rough consensus" concept (we now need multi-consensus to consistently document the multilateral solutions we need and their interactions). jfc .
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