Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> forwards:

To be frank, I have been trying to find out what the fuss has been about regarding this standard and come up.. not blank, as it _is_ worrying that ITU is spending time on this shit, but at least I haven't found anything to inspire the absolutely massive shitstorm I have been seeing in certain places (e.g. /.). Is it just because it's the ITU doing it rather than, say, ISO or ANSI?

Yes. In the current climate if the ITU tried to standardise ponies, people would find reasons why ponies are evil. Peter.