Re: [idn] host name vs. domain name

[Maynard Kang <maynard@pobox.org.sg>]

Hi David,

I concur with your assessment of the working group objectives - however
what I was trying to suggest is that the distinction between a "host
name" and a "domain name" should not be a main point of contention as it
would only seem as if any argument solely along those lines were merely
playing on semantics. More credit should be given towards the essence of
a suggestion rather than to nit-pick on the usage of words.

Can it be safe to assume, if I may suggest, that any reference to
internationalization of domain names amongst discussion here probably
refers to internationalization of "host names" instead? 

It is unfortunate that the two terms have become such an issue. Whatever
it is, if a term is used wrongly, perhaps we should just s/[Wrong
term]/[Correct term]/g and move on. There are better things to do. I
agree that there is a difference, the difference is important (in
syntax) and we should all use correct terms (ideally). But only the
people actually writing and editing proper technical documentation need
be painfully aware of it. For the rest of us who just want to contribute
it is probably not so vital.

My humble opinion.

Maynard

"David R. Conrad" wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> > I agree that there is a distinction between the two and that in order to
> > minimize confusion this distinction should be maintained. But I am not
> > so sure that it is entirely important for the purposes of what this
> > working group seeks to achieve.
> 
> I figure it is actually critical to what the working group is trying to
> achieve, if you assume the WG is trying to facilitate the use of non-US-ASCII
> labels in the operational domain name system.



> 
> Again, the domain name system protocols, as designed, are capable of
> supporting non-US-ASCII labels -- that is, "domain names" can be much more
> than "a-z", "A-Z", "0-9", and "-" (and, with a minor mod to the most common
> name server software, this can actually be implemented).  The problem is that
> "host names", not "domain names" are what some very significant protocols
> expect and violating that expectation will have not insignificant
> implications.
> 
> If the point of the working group is to "internationalize" domain names, we
> should declare victory and move on -- it is (almost) done now.  If the point
> of the working group is to allow people to use non-US-ASCII labels in host
> names, then there is a lot of work to be done, not least of which are:
> 
> - figuring out what encoding to standardize on;
> - figuring out how to augment the DNS tree to support those encodings;
> - identifying and/or figuring out how to deal with those protocols that are
> affected by changes in  host names;
> 
> As an aside, my understanding of the "UTF-5"/CIDNUC proposals is they attempt
> to avoid the i18n implications by insuring that non-"host name" labels are
> encoded in the "host name" character set ("a-z", "A-Z", "0-9", and "-").  The
> UTF-8 proposal makes no attempt at avoidance.  As such, it isn't clear to me
> from the wording of the draft requirement doc how one could actual meet the
> requirements using UTF-8.
> 
> Rgds,
> -drc
> Executive Director, ISC