Private Use areas

[William_J_G Overington via Unicode]

James Kass wrote:

> Non-conformant?  Well, it's probably overkill anyway.  A simpler method of identifying which PUA convention is being used for a file
would be to either have the first line of the file being something like [PUA00001] or to have the file name be something like MYFILE.TXTPUA00001.  Where "PUA00001" equals the CSUR.  Other numbers (PUA00002, PUA00003, etc.) for other PUA conventions.

The problem that then arises is that a registry is needed for what those numbers mean, such as PUA01728. So what if someone writes explaining his designs for glyphs for the language of the people who live in the northern part of the fifth planet from the sun in the science fiction novel he is writing? Is registration granted instantly upon request or is there a threshold of some sort? What if lots of people do that, including some people wanting a registry code number for the various emoji that they want? If there is a threshold of proving usage and so on, or of showing that the designs have been produced AT a business or AT a college or whatever, then the system will only work for some users of the Private Use Areas.

My opinion is that the system needs to be free-standing, with each usage possibly self-contained or with an external reference to a document that is available. Care would need to be taken to send a copy of any such document to deposit libraries such as The British Library so as to ensure long-term conservation.

William Overington

Tuesday 28 August 2018