RE: General internationalization

[Paul Hoffman / IMC <phoffman@imc.org>]

At 02:51 AM 1/18/00 -0800, Andrew Draper wrote:
>If multiple character sets are used then the protocol must make it obvious
>which character set is being used for each protocol element.  Alternatively
>the protocol could use a single wide character set.

This works for me as well.

>Agree that network should not be present.  The zonefile comment is badly
>expressed.  What I meant it to mean was that if a server allows zonefiles to
>be defined in multiple character sets then the character set of a zonefile
>should be deterministic.  Of course, given a sufficiently intelligent server
>zonefiles can be in multiple character sets independent of whether the wire
>protocol uses a single character set or multiple character sets.

All the more reason for us not to start specifying the UI of zone files. We 
want to specify the UI seen by users and by resolvers.

>Not sure I agree with this either.  Many people are putting binary data into
>TXT records - this requirement would break that.  Suggest instead:
>
>"Must provide a record which can contain internationalised text (similar to
>TXT)."

Again, I don't think this should be part of our requirements. We're 
internationalizing domain names, not the DNS itself. If the DNS folk want 
to have binary or non-binary records in the DNS that don't relate to domain 
names, that is not our concern.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium