Re: [idn] Reality Check

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

"Adam M. Costello" wrote:

> I think we have consensus on "New protocols should use UTF-8 for
> hostnames."  We might have strong support for "Existing application
> protocols should try to migrate toward UTF-8."  I don't think there is
> anything approaching consensus on "ACE will eventually be eradicated
> from all protocols."

I concur on this assessment, even though the third point weakens my
arguments. Some protocols which are dead and buried are very unlikely to
be upgraded.

As an aside, it is possible to upgrade many of the legacy protocols to
UTF-8 without actually changing the protocol semantics, simply by using
out-of-band negotation features. Finger, Echo, Gopher, etc., all of them
could be upgraded. Not by this WG of course, but the work that this WG
performs will dictate how that work eventually happens.

For example, if there's an out-of-band negotiation for "use UTF-8" that is
glued onto finger, then the output can be internationalized, but the query
inputs will also need to be internationalized for maximum functionality.
This will include IDNs (with Finger in particular).

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