Re: [idn] New protocol proposal: IDNRA

["A. Vine" <avine@eng.sun.com>]

John, et al,

I was only thinking of the client end, but I will say that it can be
indicative of the server side/agent side of operations, and in some cases
can affect what happens.  I'm sure for countries who use characters
outside the ASCII range, they'll be more likely to move than for e.g. the
US.  As long as they don't have another mechanism in place which can
handle int'lized domain names, that is (thinking of email systems which
are not MIME-compliant, but which just pass 8-bit through).

Not really interested in a huge debate.  If you say 10-20-50 years,
whatever, I'd be happy to take your word for it.

Regards,
Andrea

John C Klensin wrote:
> 
> --On Wednesday, 30 August, 2000 16:17 -0700 "A. Vine"
> <avine@eng.sun.com> wrote:
> 
> > I liken it to the deployment of new browser versions.
> > Certainly a year is not enough to expect.  I'd give it closer
> > to 4 years.
> 
> Andrea,
> 
> Once we do i18n DNS names (directly or indirectly), there will
> be instant pressure to permit i18n externally-referenced file
> system names and, of course, email addresses.  Assuming one
> accepts four years for browser versions, what do you think the
> deployment rate is for
> 
> * MUAs and MTAs and message stores ?
> * FTP clients & servers ?
> * Telnet clients & servers ?
> 
> Let's be optimistic and assume 90% penetration is enough and not
> insist on 95 or 100%.
> 
> I invite you to dispute the figures I'm about to give but...
> 
> - A large fraction of U**x systems are still running the
> original Berkeley FTP clients (and Windows 2000 contains, as far
> as I can tell, a clone of one).  20 years?
> 
> - There are a non-trivial number of people (I don't know if it
> is anywhere near 10%) who started believing that "cat" was a
> mail reader back when uucp intersystem mail was introduced into
> U**x and who haven't changed their minds.   25 years?
> 
> And I won't even bother with the non-U**x examples, on the
> theory that the older ones are below that 10% residual threshold.
> 
>     john

-- 
Andrea Vine, avine@eng.sun.com, iPlanet i18n architect
"A bibliophile is a lover of books; a bibliomane, a wildly enthusiastic
collector. An abandoned fanatic, once he succumbs to bibliolatry,
graduates into a bibliomaniac. While a bibliomaniac's spouse might easily
become a bibliophobe, his arch nemesis would be a biblioclast: a
destroyer
of books." -- Bill Strubbe, A Bibliophile in Britain