Re: On language-dependent defaults for character-folding

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
> CC: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 12:57:54 -0500
> 
>   > > Please let's drop the idea of determining the folding behavior
>   > > automatically from something in Unicide.  It is too rigid.
> 
>   > We don't determine the behavior from Unicode.  We use the Unicode data
>   > to implement the behavior we consider useful.
> 
> What we have seen is that the behavior that comes from that Unicode
> data does not please the users very much.  Users seem to have many
> different ideas of what folding is useful, and disagree with each
> other greatly.

My analysis of the discussion is that a small number of specific cases
of language-independent folding makes users of some languages unhappy.
The number of such cases is small, and they only bother users of a
small number of languages we support.

My conclusion from that is that the feature as implemented needs to be
augmented in minor ways, but is basically correct for the majority of
use cases.  IOW, it's not perfect, but it's a significant improvement
for many.

> We should not cling to the set of folding specs that happen to come
> from that Unicode data.  Let's forget that Unicode data.

That'd be a mistake tantamount to throwing the baby with the
bathwater.  Besides, any alternative data to use for such a feature
will be either identical or very similar to what we use now.  The only
alternative that won't need such similar data is to decide to never
have this feature.  I don't think we want to do that.