Network Working Group                                        C. Weider
Request for Comments: 2130                                   Microsoft
Category: Informational                                     C. Preston
                                                       Preston & Lynch
                                                           K. Simonsen
                                                                 DKUUG
                                                         H. Alvestrand
                                                               UNINETT
                                                           R. Atkinson
                                                         Cisco Systems
                                                            M. Crispin
                                              University of Washington
                                                           P. Svanberg
                                                                   KTH
                                                            April 1997

              The Report of the IAB Character Set Workshop
                    held 29 February - 1 March, 1996

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to sincerely thank Information Sciences
   Institute (ISI), and in particular Joyce K. Reynolds for graciously
   hosting this event; Joe Kemp and Jeanine Yamazaki of ISI made sure
   the facilities met our needs.  We also wish to thank the Internet
   Society, which underwrote travel for participants who might not
   otherwise have been able to attend.  Of course, we also wish to thank
   the many experts who participated in the workshop and on the mailing
   list; a complete list of these people can be found in Appendix D.
   Bunyip Information Systems was kind enough to provide mailing list
   facilities for this work.

Table of Contents

   Abstract
   0:    Executive summary..........................................   2
   1:    Introduction...............................................   3
   2:    Character sets on the Internet -- the problem..............   3
   2.1:  Character set handling in existing protocols...............   4
   3:    Architectural model........................................   6
   3.1:  Segments defined...........................................   7
   3.2:  On the wire................................................   8




 
RFC 2130             Character Set Workshop Report            April 1997


   3.3:  Determining which values of CCS, CES, and TES are used.....   9
   3.4:  Recommended Defaults.......................................  10
   3.5:  Guidelines for conversions between coded character sets....  13
   4:    Presentation issues........................................  14
   5:    Open issues................................................  14
   5.1:  Language tags..............................................  15
   5.2:  Public identifiers.........................................  16
   5.3:  Bi-directionality..........................................  16
   6:    Security Considerations....................................  16
   7:    Conclusions................................................  16
   8:    Recommendations............................................  17
   8.1:  To the IAB.................................................  17
   8.2:  For new Internet protocols.................................  18
   8.3:  For registration of new character sets.....................  18
   Appendix A: List of protocols affected by character set issues...  20
   Appendix B: Acronyms.............................................  23
   Appendix C: Glossary.............................................  24
   Appendix D: References...........................................  25
   Appendix E: Recommended reading..................................  27
   Appendix F: Workshop attendee list...............................  29
   Appendix G: Authors' Addresses...................................  30

Abstract

   This report details the conclusions of an IAB-sponsored invitational
   workshop held 29 February  - 1 March, 1996, to discuss the use of
   character sets on the Internet.  It motivates the need to have
   character set handling in Internet protocols which transmit text,
   provides a conceptual framework for specifying character sets,
   recommends the use of MIME tagging for transmitted text, recommends a
   default character set *without* stating that there is no need for
   other character sets, and makes a series of recommendations to the
   IAB, IANA, and the IESG for furthering the integration of the
   character set framework into text transmission protocols.

0: Executive summary

   The term 'Character Set' means many things to many people. Even the