RE: [idn] host name vs. domain name

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

At 03:56 PM 3/16/00 -0800, McDonald, Ira wrote:
>It is rather more than a 'goal' of the IETF to move away
>from ASCII.  Per RFC 2277 'IETF Policy on Character Sets
>and Languages' (BCP 18, January 1998), ALL Internet protocols
>MUST support the use of UTF-8 in order to 'enter or remain
>on the Internet standards track'.  Newly developed Internet
>protocols MUST default to UTF-8 for text strings.  Existing
>Internet protocols MUST be updated to support UTF-8.

RFC 2277 is a nice, short document. It would be great if people read it. 
When they do, they'll see that much of what appears in the previous 
paragraph is not at all accurate.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium