Re: [idn] UTF-8 as the long-term IDN solution

[Mats Dufberg <dufberg@nic-se.se>]

On 29 May 2001, D. J. Bernstein wrote:

> I suspect that we have consensus that the long-term IDN solution will
> encode Unicode characters as UTF-8 on the wire. I request that the WG
> chairs run a poll to see whether we have consensus.

Independent of IDN scheme it is important that the the solution is
considered as an upgrade of DNS, not a temporary hack, to have it
uniformly implemented.

If IDN is implemented as Nameprep+ACE I do not think that we will see
enough reason to replace ACE with UTF-8 on the wire in a foreseeable
future. Such a change would require that all DNS infrastructure is
upgraded. If UTF-8 is used, the ACE-to-UTF-8 and UTF-8-to-ACE conversions
can easily be handled in the interface to the DNS system.

Today we have three alternatives, as far as I can see:

1. UTF-8 without nameprep
2. UTF-8 with nameprep
3. ACE with nameprep


I do not consider "ACE now, UTF-8 later" an alternative.



Mats

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Mats Dufberg                                     +46-8-545 857 06
dufberg@nic-se.se                           fax: +46-8-545 857 29