"Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull(a)sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> writes:
 2. With a little luck we may be able to use system-provided
facilities
    in some cases.  IMO it is highly likely that Microsoft et al will
    provide highly-optimized patented (eg) versions of some of the
    algorithms.  Much as I hate software patents (etc), I think users
    should have the advantage of their platform. 
Or at the very least we can tap into all the conversions provided by
libiconv (and if all its changes are merged  back into glibc just
those by glibc).
Jan