Re: [idn] pool deadline imminent

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

> > > 2) Does "idealism" include wanting to simplify the system so one form of
> > > presentation encoding is in use?
> >if the operational need for backward compatibility is ignored, yes.
> 
> There are other operational needs beyond backwards compatibility.  One of
> these is providing useful functionality that meets market demands in a
> timeframe the market wants.

Absolutely.  But this also favors an ACE solution.

True, you can provide a UTF-8 solution sooner to the market - but only if 
you pretend that the various things out there that already use UTF-8
do so in an acceptable manner.  For instance, you have to ignore the 
need for IDNs lookups to work even after the IDN has been transcribed 
by a human or transcoded into a different character set encoding.

> > > 3) What implements DUDE now?  What implements UTF-8 now?
> >since nameprep is a necessary part of any UTF-8 scheme,
> 
> Nameprep has not, as far as I know, been necessary to implement UTF-8 in
> (say) an operating system, an MUA, a web browser, etc.

No, you don't need nameprep to implement UTF-8 lookups.  You just need
it before UTF-8 lookups (or any kind of lookup using the 10646 repertoire) 
will work well.

> >nobody implements
> >either one...or at least the number of deployed implementations are so
> >small relative to the number of things that need to be upgraded that there
> >is no practical difference in deployment.
> 
> I would think rewriting (say) the operating system, the MUA, the web
> browser, etc. to understand DUDE at the same level at current UTF-8 support
> would imply a difference in deployment.

I would think that also if it were relevant.  But in fact there's no need to 
rewrite an operating system, web browser, etc.  Applications  that already
know how to input and display 10646 characters (regardless of encoding) 
need only small changes to use an ACE for IDN lookups, and they will need
those changes in any case due to (a) the need to do nameprep and (b)
the need to interoperate with other legacy applications.  

And there's absolutely nothing that prevents a vendor from shipping an app 
that uses DUDE on legacy operating systems.

> Don't you worry about replicating the Coloured Book insanity?

There have been so many different sets of coloured books (with different
kinds of insanity) that I don't know which one you mean.

Keith