🚀 go-pugleaf

> So, what's my plan?  Talk utf and 9P and get some connectivity happening.

Yes!  I like this plan.  Plan 9's UTF (aka FSS-UTF aka UTF-2) is
designed very well, and is clearly a very good solution for such
things as file names and file contents in UNIX-like and Plan-9-like
systems.  Some of the remaining issues to be considered:

(1) What to do about email and netnews?

    I guess you need to choose from the following:

        (a) try to get links to be "8-bit clean"
        (b) don't bother with (a) and encode in 7 bits
        (c) do both (a) and (b), somehow "knowing" which links are 8-bit

(2) What to do about systems that use straight Unicode

    If such systems actually become popular, perhaps design flexible
    interfaces e.g. optional conversion between UTF and Unicode in NFS,
    FTP, etc.

(3) What to do about systems using other encodings, e.g. ISO-2022-JP

    The American infrastructure is large enough that it can safely ignore
    Japan.  If some people within that infrastructure absolutely need to
    read e.g. fj.* newsgroups, they can build ISO-2022-JP <-> UTF
    converters.  If UTF catches on even in Japan, such converters may
    become unnecessary.

(4) What to do about "data announcement" (or "file typing")

    In some protocols, e.g. MIME, you have no choice -- you must indicate
    that the text is UTF.  In other protocols, such as FTP, there is no
    data announcement, so you have to decide whether or not you're going
    to add such an option to FTP.  Roughly the same can be said about NFS.

(5) What to do about language tags in Unicode/UTF

    Probably need to continue researching this area.


The above are in my own prioritization order, but I suspect that many
of you will attach different priorities, or substract from/add to this
list.  Or substitute 9P for NFS, or add 9P to the list, etc.


Respectfully submitted by:
-- 
Erik M. van der Poel                               erik@poel.juice.or.jp