[idn] Some thoughts...

["James Seng/Personal" <James@Seng.cc>]

Afterthoughts I have from ICANN meeting in LA.

Paul have done an excellent summary on the ICANN IDN Workshop so anyone
interested should mail him for details.

It is interesting to note that any discussion about IDN would immediately
result in a standard 'we shall wait for the IETF IDN WG to complete their
work' conclusion. This is been echoed from ICANN to VRGS again and again...

Okay, perhaps I am too stressed out or maybe I am under too much pressure. But
I am having cool feet that all the people looking at the WG as if we were
about to produce something which can save the world. (yea right!)

So I am not sure now how we should approach this problem. It has been fun so
far, as the WG progress, exploring various solutions, getting all sort of
interesting ideas been throw about. But hey, the message is clear: Fun is
over.

Now, there is REAL pressure to produce something which is (1) Right long-term
approach (2) Deploy Fast. Most solutions we have falls either in (1) or (2)
and nothing we seen 2/2 yet. And all of them are subjective.

Honestly, I am still not clear which direction is the right way. Should we
look at something which is compatible with the existing infrastucture such as
ACE solution or should we look longer-term UTF-8 with consequences to break
down the current infrastucture.

And also, there is a question if ICANN, the business, the lawyers, the
registry etc is willing to wait for the WG to produce our work (despite what
they say now). Or even if our solution fit _their_ requirements. (what if we
come back with a solution which say we need to 2 years to deploy..would that
work?)

Coming back, we have narrow down to two/three approach with some variant now:
(a) use ACE to retain backward compatibility or; (b) use UTF-8 in EDNS/IN BIT
etc (c) a+b

(a) I like ACE solution. It is something I strongly believe in for a long
time, as it is incremental building upon what we already have. Yes, it is a
hack, it is technically ugly. UTF-8 is more elegant...But heck, we could
compare this to (using Dave Crocker's example) X.400 vs MIME. What works is
whats count.

(b) A UTF-8 solution is cleaner especially with Marc's EDNS and extended label
length. The purist in me wants this solution but waiting for EDNS to roll out
would be too slow. The consequences (of not able to meet the community urgent
needs) are that the IDN WG will have a great solution but fails in practice
leading to commerical companies setting industry standards.

(a+b) Some suggestion to use ACE solution and then phase towards UTF-8. After
having run 4 testbed, 3 of them using some form of ACE, I am very aware of the
effectiveness of ACE solutions (in varity of forms). My worry is that it work
_TOO WELL_, so well that we end up with an ACE solution and no pressure to
move towards the UTF-8 solution.

What is the right solution? I am not able to make up my mind yet. I am still
hunting for a 2/2 solution but we dont have the time anymore. We have been
spending too much time talking about requirements, talking about what we like
to see, how we want it to behave etc.

Now is the time to start discussing what is the right way. The design teams
are now quite busy discussing various proposals. But I would also like to hear
what the rest of the WG thinks...

-James Seng