Re: [idn] Debunking the ACE myth

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

> Is that 'all the TLD servers' or 'all the TLD servers that allow IDNs'?
> Would it be possible to have it so that e.g. if Switzerland (.ch) would
> decide they don't need IDNs anywhere, they could just prohibit it?

The root and TLD servers would only need to understand the extended label
type for UTF-8 IDN referrals (for downstream 4LD labels) to work.

If there is a need for a particular (root|TLD) zone to hold UTF-8 IDN
entries in particular (essentially, does it need to hold UTF-8 NS records
for delegation purposes), then the servers for that TLD would need to
support the ACE-plus-UTF8 dual-mode protocol.

It is feasible for each TLD to incrementally support the dual-mode IDN
according to their own i18n schedule. They would have to support the
extended label type at a minimim, but they would not need to run
ACE-plus-UTF8 immediately (COM can run without it forever, for example).

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