Re: [idn] Adding "optional" characters in draft-ietf-idn-nameprep

[Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>]

> > >2. the server realizes that there are multiple names which might
> > >    match the one that the client typed in.  so it returns a list.
> > >    in this case the client has to provide some mechansism that
> > >    allows the user to choose.
> > 
> > This forces a significant change in the way applications use the DNS
> > (including expecting a person to be able to choose by context).  That
> > seems pretty extreme for a problem where we have much simpler
> > solutions.
> 
> I dont like the multiple names possibility idea. Basic feature of DNS is
> that it is a 1-1 or N-1 mapping of names to a resource. Once you go from
> 1-N and N-N, you lose a lot of functionity including the ability to do
> Email and consistency is names.

I guess the question is whether 1-1 or N-1 are good enough for all
languages.  In Arabic, at least, there are many clusters of 
different words which have the same spelling but which are distinguished 
by pronounciation (and can be written by diacritical marks).  
Would Arabic users of need to be able to write IDNs for multiple words
within a cluster?  I can't answer that question, but I hope the answer
is no.  It would certainly make things easier.

and yet I think it is important that we understand the answer to
this question (for all languages) before we choose the kind of
solution.

and yes you're right...if we have to build a system that accepts
ambiguous spellings of words then we will need to have an 
unambiguous name (perhaps just an ordinary DNS name?) for each 
service that can be embedded in email addresses, web documents, etc.
but we probably need an ascii form of each name anyway.

Keith