RE: [idn] final rev of charter

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

At 8:45 AM -0700 6/15/00, Russ Rolfe wrote:
>If we lived in a perfect world, I would agree with your statement, 
>but we have to deal with the real world out there.  When the 
>internet was more an academic property, we could take our time and 
>look at all the possibilities, but the Internet is now driven by 
>business.

This kind of cynicism may be prevalent, but it is certainly not 
shared by everyone here. Many of us are working hard on 
internationalizing domain names to help *people*, not businesses. The 
greatest benefit of a company, a non-profit organization, or a 
government being able to put its actual name in its domain name is to 
the Internet users who are more likely to get the online resources 
they want. This is not about vanity or profits: it is about usability.

>People and businesses are asking for this now.  There is a need to 
>be filled now.  This is an environment where one person's hesitation 
>is another's opportunity.  IMHO, if we are not more aggressive in 
>coming up with a standard, someone else will implement something 
>that will become the defacto standard, or many implementations will 
>arise and then we will need to try to make them all work with each 
>other.

This happens all the time. Sometimes it is helpful, but more often it 
is harmful to end users. Fortunately, many of the companies who are 
participating in this joint effort are showing corporate restraint by 
not deploying the first thing that pops into their head. It would be 
very bad if a company destroys the usability of the primary naming 
mechanism on the Internet just for a quick profit.

>This does not mean that we should jump into something with looking 
>at all the ramifications, but that we should work for a middle 
>ground that will give as a workable solution as aggressively as 
>possible.

So far, all of the solutions that have been proposed (including the 
one from your company) have been shown to have flaws, some of them 
disastrous. At this point, there are many proposals on the table, and 
more are about to come out because of the change in the charter. We 
need a balance of proposal writers and proposal checkers, and a 
healthy and active discussion between the two groups. This doesn't 
have to be slow, but rushing it will almost certainly cause problems 
for end users (and businesses) that could be prevented by being 
thorough.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium