Re: [idn] UTF-8 / RACE

[Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>]

> My web page carefully specifies details of the ACE solution: where ACE
> is used, where it is not used, and what has to be changed to make that
> work. 

yes, but those details are chosen to favor the argument you want to make.
it's unlikely that a real ACE solution would work that way.

> The reason that gethostbyname() has to be upgraded, for example,
> is that ACE is not used in ``command lines for telnet, ssh, etc.'' but
> ACE is used in ``DNS queries and responses.''

wrong.  gethostbyname should not be upgraded, because this would cause
harm to applications that expect ASCII domain names.   it's pure fantasy
to think that you can simply change gethostbyname and expect most
applications to start support UTF-8.  some will work, some won't,
and some of those that appear to work will work unreliably.

changing an existing interface underneath an application is a good
way to make that application fail in subtle ways.

> I'm willing to analyze the costs of other IDN solutions. But I'm not
> interested in proposals that don't actually provide internationalized
> domain names. 

nor do you appear to be interested in analyzing the difficulties 
associated with incremental transitions of UTF-8, since you 
consistently fail to consider them.

> It's idiotic to claim that we have Greek domain names if
> Greek users aren't seeing Greek alphas and betas on the screen. (Does
> anyone dispute this?)

it's idiotic to claim to perform an analysis when you refuse to consider
significant and obvious costs and failure modes.