COMPOUND_TEXT versus UTF8_STRING

[Roland Mainz]

Matthias Clasen wrote:
> 
> > It is not easy to get rid of COMPOUND_TEXT since many X11 specs have to
> > be rewritten/updated to do that. And backwards-compatibility to existing
> > (binary) applications is required, too.
> >
> > What about adding an extension to ISO 2022 which defines a new sequence
> > to mark the following string as UTF-8 - is that possible ? That way
> > backwards-compatibility to COMPOUND_TEXT is maintained and existing
> > applications still work without any changes. Is that possible (to be
> > honestly I don't know much about COMPOUND_TEXT) ?
> 
> You don't get rid of a monstrosity by making it even more monstrous...

The alterantive is to break backwards-compatibility and that will cause
big interoperability problems. The Linux desktop already has enougth of
these issues so adding another one will cause even more grief.

----

Bye,
Roland

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