Re: IETF Internationalised Domain Name mailing list: callingfor more Asia voices

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

At 22:34 30.01.00 +0800, tinwee@pobox.org.sg wrote:
>Dear Harald,
>You are correct to warn about divergence.
>
>We are working towards forming a coordination body to
>synchronise each language working group, and to set down basic principles
>such as those discussed in this mailing list, eg. minimal changes
>to the current system (ie. don't suggest any thing that breaks
>current DNS system) etc. etc.
>
>In other words, the coordination body should encourage each
>language working group to converge and harmonise with each
>other and with IETF. This IETF idn list should also open up
>to the opinions of the various language groups.

Of course, the IDN list is open. That's its whole purpose in life.

>For example, some country NICs want to have flat TLD "realnames" style
>and uk.ac.xxx style of general-to-specific domain names,
>and also omission of the "dot", while others have more than
>one translation of .com for company for instance.... so there is
>a lot of supra-language-group coordination which AP* organisations
>will try to carry out.

This is, however, a matter that is not particular to Asia, nor is it a 
business in which the IETF has competence to muddle - there being several 
sets of burned fingers around to prove that.

The matter of HOW to handle IDN names belongs to this group (including, 
probably, the questions of *recommendations* for direction of presentation 
of domain names, and how you display the "dot" - we can't standardize user 
interfaces), but the question of WHAT domain names to register is very much 
not an IETF problem but a registry problem.

And for the top-level domain space, it is an ICANN problem.

                         Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@edb.maxware.no