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Re: [idn] Document Status?

At 10:17 AM 9/7/2002 +0200, Erik Nordmark wrote:

> The current specification has not made at least one essential, difficult
> decision.  As a consequence, someone registering an IDN for use with email
> or the web cannot know the correct set of characters available to them.

Which text in the specification are you referring to?
I need specifics to understand your issue.
Erik,

A moment of process concern:

You have been given the specifics, including a specific Last Call posting to the IESG, private discussion from me, and an independent internet draft on the subject.

Your question implies rather strongly that the IESG did not consider this input. The input was provided 2 months ago. If that input was not understood, why were no clarifications requested?

I will add that asking someone to point to the place in a document where something is *missing* is a rather curious assignment. How can one point to something that does not exist?

To provide you with the specifics, again:

The current DNS has usage for email and web addresses that limits the range of valid characters. IDN does not define a parallel structure. The implication is that IDN strings do not have different ranges of valid characters for email/web domain names and for, for example, domain name tags for SRV records.

If it is correct that there is no difference, that should be stated in the document. Given the history with ASCII domain names, it is essential to document this issue explicitly.

I will again note that even one of the IDNA authors is under the misapprehension that the set of valid characters might, somehow, be restricted later. The idea that we do not get to declare existing names invalid seems to be absent from the thinking on this topic.

The simple questions are this, Erik:

I want to register a Unicode domain name for use in my email address.

What are the set of valid Unicode characters?

Where is this documented?


The only text I recall which has some bearing on this is:
  It is expected that some name-handling bodies, such as large
  zone administrators and groups of affiliated zone administrators,
...
I don't see how registries limiting the set of Unicode code points
that can be used in a part of the name space has any negative impact on
interoperability; registries limit the types of names for various policy
reasons already (such as only allowing registered companies in some
I am hoping that I am misunderstanding what you have just written, Erik.

You are suggesting that the set of valid characters -- leaf characters? intermediate node characters? -- will depend upon the portion of the DNS tree that the name is under? This is a fundamental change to the DNS.

Since you disagree, please cite an existing example of such a dependency, on place in the tree, in the current DNS.

d/

ps. you might also wish to comment on the fact that the IDNA specification makes a formal increase to the set of valid characters, from a subset of ASCII to (a subset of?) Unicode, yet this fact is not documented in the current specification.

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Dave Crocker <mailto:dave@tribalwise.com>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
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