| Terms of Reference for a
Project Team to perform CEN7TC304 -- P 3 1997-09-19 |
|
| Title | Guide on the use of character sets Guide on the use of character sets in Europe |
| Scope | Provide a single guidance document on the use of character set standards and related specifications in Europe. This guidance shall merge the existing guides that are almost exclusively based upon the 7-bit and 8-bit code structure (the existing CEN Guide, the EPOS Character Sets module, and the EWOS GOSS character set guide), bringing the information up to date as necessary and adding material on the new 10646/Unicode structure. |
| Subject and justification | Standards for the Multilingual Infrastructure include those for character
sets and related specifications. Until recently, character sets have been restircted to
the 7-bit and 8-bit code structures. These were designed for the technology available at
the time. Advances in techno,ogy ahve highlighted the shortcomings of these code
structures and a new code structure using multi-byte coding has been developed (ISO/IEC
10646-1/Unicode) which has the considerable backing of the suppliers and is generally
considered to represent the future direction in character set technology. However, legacy
systems will continue to exist for some considerable time. Within this situation, there is
a growing and urgent need for clear guidance on the use of character set standards and
related specifications in Europe. The customers for this guidance include the end-users
represented by operations people, planners, system development staff and procurement
officers, other standardizeers, system integrators and the supply industry in general. The new guide will be a CEN Workshop Agreement and will be delivered in Web form tagged with HTML. It is anticipated that a later edition of this guide will be produce to take into account the other specifications being developed within the TC 304 programme, broadening its scope beyond pure character set technology issues. See also document N 738. |
| Reference authorities in CEN | Reviews and resolution of issues by: TC 304 WG 3/WS meetings. Final approval of deliverables: CEN/TC 304 workshop |
| References | R-IT-04, EPHOS |