Re: [idn] Why follow IDNA with UTF-8?

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

Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
> 
> At 2:49 PM -0500 7/15/01, Eric A. Hall wrote:
> >What severe problems?
> 
> If any DNS server in the search path for a name has not been updated,
> or if the user's resolver has not been updated, the query will fail.
> That seems pretty bad, yes?

If that were actually the case, yes. The dual-mode proposal allows for the
use of ACE wherever it is required. It will work just as well as the
ACE-only approach.

The difference comes from what the user gets when they commit to the
technology and upgrade. In the ACE-only camp, they get transliteration. In
the dual-mode camp, they get transliteration and they also get direct
access to UTF8. The ACE approach restricts *ALL FUTURE ACTIVITY* to the
boat anchor that is ASCII, while the dual-mode approach lays a foundation
for a new breed of internationalized applications.

How you can oppose the obvious choice here is completely beyond me. What
exactly is the problem that this WG is trying to solve? Aren't we trying
to internationalize domain names so that apps can enjoy them? And yet you
want us to make it even *HARDER* for developers by mandating that they may
only use encrypted strings that show up nowhere else in the entire
computing universe. Outrageous.

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