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Re: [idn] Document Status?
At 11:31 PM 9/1/2002 -0400, John C Klensin wrote:
the IDN WG's output constitutes a (or several) significant change(s) in
how the DNS is used and interpreted,
1. IDNA makes no changes to DNS "semantics" and no changes to basic DNS use.
2. IDNA increases the set of valid domain name characters from a subset of
ASCII to a subset of Unicode.
3. IDNA uses an encoding trick of the type used in MIME, to provide an
upgrade path that has minimal impact on the installed base, yet permits
interoperability.
If one of them is that we have moved from "characters" to "bits that
represent...",
It is NOT one of the changes.
At 10:53 PM 9/1/2002 -0500, Eric A. Hall wrote:
I would reiterate the factual point that IDNA requires a forklift upgrade
of the Internet's current application clients, and it therefore does not
satisfy the ground covered in points "a" and "b".
Hmmmm. Let's see...
Applications that currently speak only ASCII, for domain names, need to be
changed to support Unicode for domain names. This sort of change is
certain to be significant for any application making the enhancement, no
matter what the details are.
So along with that inherent set of changes, IDNA imposes a special encoding
requirement, to map the unicode onto ascii.
Call it what it is, not what we want it to be. It's a cute hack that
allows for the sale and register of i18n domain names, and which may allow
for the visual representation of these domain names once compliant
applications are deployed.
The MIME-like encoding technique is a cute hack, proven to work well.
Increasing the set of valid characters is what it is, not what some might
want it to be, and it certainly is not a cute hack.
d/
----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:dave@tribalwise.com>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850