[idn] Re: stability

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

Erik van der Poel <erik@vanderpoel.org> writes:

>>> More importantly, this mistake only affects highly unusual,
>>> malformed data. I think that if IDNA decides not to follow
>>> Unicode's recommendation now or in the next couple of years, 10 or
>>> 20 years from now we would look back in time and regret this
>>> decision. 
>> I don't think so. "We" could still change the decision in 20 years,
>> and
>> not a single registration would be affected. The sequences causing the
>> behaviour change are *really* unusual - I don't know if software can
>> visually render them in a meaningful way, and I guess a native speaker
>> would just consider them moji-bake. So it is unlikely that anybody would
>> try to use them as input to IDNA in the next 20 years in a reasonable
>> application.
>
> If we do not correct the specs, more and more implementations will be 
> created and deployed, some implementing it one way, the others the other 
> way. It is hard to change something when a lot of implementations have 
> been deployed. This is why we have to act now (or soon). We have to nip 
> it in the bud.

I think it may be too late to do a simple flag day and fix things.

I believe it would be useful to start thinking of the problem in terms
of a transition plan from what we have today and what we would like to
have tomorrow.  It is not clear to me exactly what we would like to
have tomorrow, so settling that would have to be part of the plan as
well.

Thanks,
Simon