Re: [idn] Some thoughts...

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

> To: "James Seng/Personal" <James@Seng.cc>
> Cc: <idn@ops.ietf.org>
> Subject: Re: [idn] Some thoughts...
> From: Johan Ihren <johani@pdc.kth.se>
> Date: 20 Nov 2000 15:52:07 +0100
>
> "James Seng/Personal" <James@Seng.cc> writes:
>
> > (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?
>
> >...
>
> > 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...
>
> Hi,
>
> I've been silent in this group sofar, but I feel that a plea for
> opinion should always be honored ;-) Let me just introduce myself by
> claiming that in matters of programming I consider myself a purist.
>
> My view is that the important thing right now is to not lose
> perspective on the DNS role. Given all the present brouhaha it is easy
> to get the impression that DNS is important in itself.
>
> It is not.
>
> DNS is only important as the glue(!) to help applications and users
> identify each other. I.e. the DNS role is only providing technical
> infrastructure to applications, since it is not an application in itself.
>
> Therefore the *design* should be for this task of providing technical
> infrastructure to applications and users. In the IDN case this means
> that the *design* should do whatever it can to help application
> protocols that use domain names as part of their addressing.
>
> To me, an ACE-based solution seems to best fulfill that requirement.
>
> Regards,
>
> Johan Ihrén
> Netnod AB
> Sweden
>