Difference between Klingon and Tengwar

[Doug Ewell]

Mark Davis wrote:

>> As I already noted, this imagined issue of "dignity" is offensive
>> beyond belief from a group that's supposedly culturally neutral. 
>
> Let's be very clear. This is an open list where most of the people on
> the list are simply expressing their opinions. These opinions are too
> often pure speculation that simply builds on other speculation voiced
> on this list. With little or no factual foundation.
>
> This "dignity" explanation is of that sort. I was around during the
> discussions, and there was never any mention of "dignity" as being a
> factor. The principal reason for not progressing Klingon was in fact
> IP complications. 

"Dignity" was my attempt to summarize, paraphrase, the second objection stated by Ken on Tuesday:

> Klingon, on the other hand, was a case *both* for IP issues
> interfering with a potential encoding that was being pushed *and* was
> an early poster child for what was considered "frivolous" encoding by
> many participants in SC2 as well as by many senior managers who were
> paying the salaries of representatives they were sending to UTC
> meetings.

If "dignity" is the wrong word to describe the quality of Unicode that would have been sacrificed, in the eyes of the senior managers, by encoding Klingon, perhaps "professionalism" or "credibility" or "seriousness" might be more suitable.

I'm not a member of Team Klingon either, but I do think if Klingon is going to be non-approved indefinitely, we should be forthright about the reason(s). I'd love to see a statement from Paramount's legal team, formally waiving any IP claims against Unicode for encoding it or font designers for implementing it, just to see where that gets us.

--
Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org