[idn] should BOM be supported

["Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com>]

Encoding and where-to-do-nameprep issues aside, has the subject of byte
order mark been covered? I'm still trying to catch up with all of the
older material so if this topic has already come up, a quick answer will
be appreciated.

Anwyay, it seems to me that in order to provide for a truly international
namespace we need to allow for BOM within the labels. This is particularly
true given a mix of names in legacy TLDs which may conflict with any newer
internationalized TLDs which may be eventually developed. For example,
[arabic].sa needs to support right-to-left BOM for the [arabic] label
while also supporting traditional left-to-right encoding for the sa TLD
label.

I say its a potential issue because if [arabic] is required to be
represented in LTR form then a future (albeit only a potential) arabic TLD
for any of the Middle East nations could cause a variety of name
recognition and IP disputes.

Ignore the potential byte cost and encoding issues for the moment please.
Is this feasible? What other issues are there?

If the inclusion of BOM is not feasible for nameprep then should the issue
of byte ordering be dealt with as a part of nameprep process (dictate the
orderuing that must be used, but exclude BOM).

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/