[Asterisk-Dev] IAX spec: Text formats and character sets

[Olle E. Johansson]

> 
> Since it's obvious that this is an unresolved issue, we should
> avoid the issue at this juncture in the IAX2 spec and simply specify
> that ASCII is the character format.  If at some point in the future
> these arguments are resolved, then at that time a revision may be made
> to the IAX2 specification allowing UTF-8 or another character set.
> 
In a community that grows world-wide and extends far outside of the 
english-speaking a-z community, that is not a good solution or attitude.
We are developing a multiprotocol PBX that already involves issues with 
character sets and language syntaxes that need to be resolved. Last 
year, I started working on solving a lot of those language issues that 
was lurking around the bug tracker with no one taking care of them or 
driving them forward. Now, I'm proud to say that with the help of a 
large number of people in the community (Thanks Fran!) Asterisk has 
support for many language syntaxes in the prompts and in the indications.

Now is not the time to put the head below the ground and say "let's just 
forget all about it" but to say "let's solve this now and then start 
coding".

If you actually read my proposal, your proposal is in line with mine, 
but I limit it a bit more. I am saying that for extensions/dial strings, 
let's stick to numbers. And for Caller ID names outside of SIP, let's 
stick to whatever the PSTN standardize on. On top op this, add a layer 
that properly supports SIP UTF8 international caller ID names and named 
extensions. And then start working on fixing the applications one by 
one, starting with pattern matching in the dial plan, where I also 
propose an *OPTIONAL* way of doing it with full UTF8 character set 
support. As John Todd pointed out, this will also add full regular 
alphanumeric pattern matching in the dialplan even for those of you that 
do are limited to A-Z :-)

The additional proposal for IAX2 was to add a way to send full UTF8 
Caller ID names and extensions to be able to properly bridge to SIP and 
also enable full Caller ID names for those that have names outside of a-z.

We will have to add IDN (International Domain Names) support and 
character set conversion with ICONV regardless, if we want to be SIP and 
DNS compliant. Let's do it right, or simply remove chan_sip and forget 
all about it - then you're free to standardize on ASCII :-)

I've been working with network communication software for over 15 years,
so I know that this is not simple to grasp or understand, I have full 
respect for that. I might have grown a bit bitter from all of these 
discussions that end with "I don't understand this, so let's stick with 
ASCII" leading to software we simply have to do "rm -r" on. Even 
Microsofts first XML notepad did not support anything else than a-z 
properly, even though XML was standardized in regards to character sets 
from the beginning ;-)

My apologies if I offended anyone with my attitude, but I can simply can 
not accept "let's stick with ASCII" comments - it's very ignorant to a 
large part of the world, and  a large part of the Asterisk community.

/Olle