Re: [idn] host name vs. domain name

[John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com>]

--On Friday, 17 March, 2000 17:40 -0800 Bill Manning <bmanning@ISI.EDU> wrote:

> This issue was touched on during the Apricot series of meetings.
> While interesting and potentially important, it really begs the issue
> of what are the -requirements- for an i18n capable DNS, which is
> the charter of this WG.  Are these things to be considered requirements?

Bill, I think it is up to the WG to determine what it considers requirements.  For whatever one personal opinion is worth, there is a meta-requirement that changes to the DNS (or the way it is used)
break as little as possible of what now works.  I'm not even tempted to pre-judge whether "as little as possible" must be "zero" or, if it is not, how much damage/disrepution the community is willing
to accept.  But it seems to me that lists and discussions of things that might be broken or impeded by various approaches is quite useful  in developing requirements and, in the future, evaluating
alternatives.

Now, of course, if the WG decides that only web addresses (i.e., things used in URLs) are of importance for internationalization and email addresses, names of [other types of] hosts, etc., are not of
concern, then both the list of uses we need to worry about and the importance of, e.g., reverse mapping issues changes.   I don't see that as the position of most of the people participating in this
discussion, but I've certainly seen discussions that seem to imply that ranking of importance.   But that possible distinction along may be another reason why it is useful to consider what
applications and operational approaches might be impacted by changes.

    john