Re: [idn] IDN priorities and requirements

[James Seng <jseng@pobox.org.sg>]

This bring us to the topic Harald was talking.

Should we work on client specification or the protocol, ie wire format, or the
server specification (zones etc). They can all be different actually...

-James Seng

Larry Masinter wrote:
> 
> Internationalization of domain names only matters when domain names appear
> to users or users have to type them in. Otherwise, domain names
> would be invisible protocol elements, and there would be no more reason
> to try to internationalize them than there would be to have a german
> version of "MAIL FROM" in SMTP or a Chinese rendering of "HEAD" in HTTP.
> 
> The requirements for internationalization of domain names should
> start from an analysis of "in which circumstances do domain names
> appear to users or users must type them in".
> 
> Some people seem to have started from somewhere else, but I think that
> the lack of the simple initial analysis has led the group down a couple of
> garden paths as well as ratholes.
> 
> I claim that there are only two applications where domain names
> are commonly visible to users and they must see them and type them
> in. Those two applications are: eail addresses and URLs. I believe,
> then, that any discussion of REQUIREMENTS for IDN should focus on
> the requirements imposed by those two applications.
> 
> A working group designing a PROTOCOL for IDN might want to rule
> I18N of other components of email addresses and URLs out of scope,
> but when doing requirements analysis, it is an important requirement
> to be compatible with the context. It would be bad if the rule for
> I18N of the LHS of an email address (before the @) were different than
> the rule for I18N of the RHS. And it would be bad if the rule for
> I18N of URLs were different than the rule for I18N of the DNS component
> of the URL.
> 
> That is why I think that the working group should START (at its first
> meeting, despite the fact that there's a mailing list chattering about
> other topics) with a discussion of I18N of email addresses and URLs.
> 
> It was for this reason that I was encouraging that discussion of URL
> internationalization be on the agenda for the next IETF meeting. I think
> that some of the meeting should also be put aside to discuss the
> requirements
> for email address I18N.
> 
> The scope of the working group in
> http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/idn-charter.html
> explicitly states that the scope should cover the use of such names by
> people and application programs, and that at least some analysis
> of the compatibility requirements means looking at the primary uses
> of domain names in applications where they are visible.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Larry
> --
> http://larry.masinter.net