Re: [idn] Requirements I-D

["Brian W. Spolarich" <briansp@acm.org>]

On Thu, 18 May 2000, John C Klensin wrote:

| Inability to use the symbols "'" and "_" in names was commented on,
| and complained about, since very long ago and, often in sentences like
| "my host should bear my name, and I can't spell it correctly
| without...". 

  I think this is an important issue to recognize.  The DNS as perhaps
originally envisioned and the DNS as it is used today are different in
many ways.  I'm not a linguist, but I'm reminded of the way that language
itself is used, in contrast with formal rules of grammar.  Just because
Latin didn't allow split infinitives doesn't mean that we can't use them,
and so on.

  The DNS has become in some ways all things to all people.  Its supposed
to be able to represent a firm name, a trademark, a product name, one's
"homestead" on the noosphere.  Register.com encourages everyone now to
register their passions, ideas, families, etc.  This implies a certain
amount of "pressure" on the DNS to accomodate those desires.  One can
complain that "the DNS wasn't designed for that purpose", but the reality
is that people want to use it that way.

| Now, we are moving toward a style of internationalization of the DNS
| that considers these strings names, rather than protocol elements.  
| As names, I believe they need to be linguistically sensible in each
| relevant target language or, in some basic way, we fail.

  Perhaps this is a naive question (I haven't done the research to see if
I can find the answer), but I'm assuming that the IDN will support a wider
character set even for the English implementation, beyond [A-Za-z0-9-].  
What were the original assumptions behind the restrictions against
'HelloWorld!.com' and the like?  Shell escapes?

  -brian

-- 
 Brian W. Spolarich - Ann Arbor, MI - briansp@acm.org - www.acm.org/~briansp/
        "Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for
            the curious attractiveness of others." - Oscar Wilde