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<p>Happy New Year! And what better way to start off a new year than
by discussing the utility (or lack thereof) of BOMs in UTF-8 text!</p>
<p>Attached is a 2nd draft of a paper intended to clarify guidance
in the Unicode standard for when a BOM should or should not be
used in UTF-8 text. Discussion of the prior draft can be found in
the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://corp.unicode.org/pipermail/unicode/2020-October/009070.html">Unicode.org
mail archives</a>. This draft contains the following changes:</p>
<ol>
<li>An abstract was added.</li>
<li>The Introduction section was modified as follows:</li>
<ol>
<li>A link to the email thread with initial draft feedback was
added.</li>
<li>The text was modified to highlight inconsistent
interpretation of the existing guidance as opposed to the
intent.</li>
<li>A quote from section 2.13, "Special Characters" regarding
Unicode signatures was added.</li>
</ol>
<li>The Proposed Resolution section was modified as follows:</li>
<ol>
<li>The section was renamed from "Possible Resolutions".</li>
<li>The previously discussed possible changes are now presented
as two distinct options.</li>
<li>Proposed wording was added for the first option.</li>
<li>The proposed wording for the second option was directed to
section 23.8.</li>
<li>Option 2 was modified as follows:</li>
<ol>
<li>The guidance for protocol designers was updated to avoid
adding a BOM to ASCII text thus rendering such text
non-ASCII.</li>
<li>The guidance for text authors regarding when to use a BOM
was expanded to cover files that may be opened by
applications with different encoding expectations.<br>
</li>
</ol>
</ol>
</ol>
<p>Thank you to everyone that shared their thoughts on the prior
draft.<br>
</p>
<p>Assuming no substantially new feedback, I plan to submit this
paper in a week or so.<br>
</p>
<p>Tom.<br>
</p>
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