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From: jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Time for 8 bit news, isn't it?????.
Message-ID: <37713@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 23 Jul 90 18:21:59 GMT
References: <1990Jul13.022224.25441@lth.se> <3119.269d97ea@mccall.com> <777@hades.ausonics.oz.au> <15688@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <+7Y$AV&@rpi.edu> <1990Jul21.091529.29557@lth.se> <1857@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
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Reply-To: jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck)
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In article <1857@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes:
|> I fully agree that we need an 8-bit news system (as well as 8-bit E-mail),
|> as this would make life a lot easier for those of us not using English.

I agree.  But any solution must take into account

Problem #0:

Many sites will continue to run the software they are using now, and no amount
of cajoling will cause them to install new, 8-bit compatible software.  In
some cases, this is because the organization gives news and mail a low priority
(doesn't bring in money, etc).  Many sites are still running obsolete software
and will continue to do so.  To install new software people need an incentive.
There is a very small incentive, unfortunately, for sites in English-speaking
countries to install software to support 8-bit character sets.

This means that any new software must co-exist with the current environment.
One way to do this is to have gateway sites do conversion.  There are
relatively
few connections between the US and Europe -- most traffic across the Atlantic
goes through uunet.  Character translation could be done on the uunet-mcsun
link -- stripping accents on articles arriving from Europe, remapping
characters
so when an American types braces in articles in comp.lang.c, readers in
Europe see braces, instead of language-specific characters.

--
Joe Buck
jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu	 {uunet,ucbvax}!galileo.berkeley.edu!jbuck