Re: My prod at IDN requirements

[Patrik Fältström <paf@swip.net>]

--On 2000-01-04 09.23 +0100, Patrik Fältström <paf@swip.net> wrote:

> Regarding what Martin wrote, the question whether the server or the user
> should define equality, I must say that it must be the same.

Let me immediately correct myself here.

What I was trying to say is that we have to think about what the server
treats as equality. As the example Harald brought up:

<ASCII C> <039F;GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON> <ASCII M>
<ASCII C> <ASCII O> <ASCII M>.

Are those domainnames equal?

The server _must_ descide, and depending on this descision, the user might
either in his user interface see a difference or not, all depending on the
presentation format of the domainname.

For example, on many terminals and in many fonts, 0 (digit zero) and O
(capital o) looks equal, and the same with 1 (digit one) and l (lower case
L). Is that a problem in the DNS that a user might see these as equal? No.
It is up to the presentation system to see that the user sees a difference
based on the rules in the DNS server.

So, I would suggest concentrating on what the server treats as equal when
we say "euqality" in this discussion, and see that the _function_ we get
out of those matching rules matches what a user would see as "most natural".

   paf