Arnold F. Winkler                                                                                SC22/WG20 N852

Unisys B203-14

2476 Swedesford Road

Malvern, 2001-07-20

Mr. Pak Dong Ki

Committee for Standardization of the D P R of Korea

Songyoguyok Songyo 2 Dong

Pyongyang, D P R of Korea

Dear Mr. Pak Dong Ki

Thank you for your letter from June 30, 2001.  I am sorry for not answering it any earlier, but I was on a business trip and did not have access to my mail.

With great pleasure, I read that the DPR of Korea is interested in making use of ISO/IEC 14651, International string ordering and comparison.  As we discussed at the SC2/WG2 meeting in April, ISO/IEC 14651 permits “tailoring” of the template table, so that your data sorts in the order you want. 

I was even more pleased by the news that the DPR of Korea plans to participate in the work of SC22/WG20. 

ISO/IEC 14651 and the Unicode Collation Algorithm

Enclosed please find the final text of the ISO 14651 standard (without the fancy cover page from ITTF) and the template table (in 6 point print and on a diskette).

SC22/WG20 is a standards body; it does not develop applications, so it cannot provide any specific implementations advice.  What we can do and will do, is to help you create a “tailoring” of the ISO/IEC 14651 common template table to meet your requirements for the sorting of Korean.. 

I have forwarded your request to the ordering experts in our committee, Alain LaBonté and Ken Whistler.  They will contact you to request the information needed for tailoring of the template table to meet the needs of the D P R of Korea.

The Unicode Collation Algorithm is functionally equivalent to ISO/IEC 14651  The Unicode Consortium’s Web site includes a list of Unicode enabled products (http://www.unicode.org/unicode/onlinedat/products.html ). 

A number of the internationalization libraries shown there include applications for collation, especially the ICU, International Components for Unicode (http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/). 

Specialists from the Unicode consortium can support you in tailoring the template table for the Unicode collation algorithm to meet your requirements.

SC22/WG20 and SC22 plenary meetings

SC22/WG20 welcomes your plan to participate in its standardization activities.  The next meeting is hosted by Unisys in Malvern, Pennsylvania – my office.  I have enclosed the preliminary agenda, meeting logistics, hotel information, and maps of the immediate area.  I would be very glad if you could come and participate in our work.

This year’s SC22 plenary is in Kona, Hawaii, on September 17-21, 2001.  A printed copy of the SC22 program of work is also enclosed with this letter. 

Administrative

In order to participate in SC22/WG20 work, you need to inform JTC1 secretariat and SC22 secretariat that you (DPRK) want to be O-members (observer members) of these standard organizations.  The participation as O-members is free, but registration is required.

You can send your request for O-membership to:

Lisa Rajchel (for JTC1) and Matthew Deane (for SC22)

JTC1 

Lisa Rajchel

JTC1 Secretariat

American National Standards Institute

25 West 43rd Street

New York, NY 10036

U.S.A.

Matthew Deane

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 Secretariat

American National Standards Institute

25 West 43rd Street

New York, NY 10036

U.S.A.

I hope to see you here in Malvern in October !

Arnold F. Winkler

(Convenor SC22/WG20)