Re: [idn] IDN priorities and requirements

[Dan Oscarsson <Dan.Oscarsson@trab.se>]

While we should focus on the protocol, I think we also need
to think of the aspects that Larry talks about:

>Internationalization of domain names only matters when domain names appear
>to users or users have to type them in.
>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".
>
>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.

Yes, it is the users that want to be able to use non-ASCII in
domain names. In this context, users for me is most people.
Desktop users, administrators, programmers and many more.
Domain names are visible in many places, for example:
e-mail addresses, URLs, host names, logs, access lists, traces,
news papers, magazines, server addresses, ftp addresses, zone files.

It does not matter if the user is a simple non-computer expert, 
hacker, administrator or programmer. They all want to use
domain names in a natural way: they want to use the characters
of their native language. They do not want to see any encoded into
ASCII forms!

I agree with Larry that when domain names are used as an integral
part of some thing else, like e-mail address or URL, we should not
have different rules for different parts. The user want to have displayed
and to type in, characters in their native language. No %-encoding,
no ASCII-encoding, no quoted-printable please.

So this expands a little outside the DNS protocol, but is important
for other protocols and we have to think about them too.

While IETF does focus on protocol, there should at least be some
informal RFCs about interaction with users. It is very easy for
software developers to forget about the users needs.

   Dan