Currency symbols (was: Re: [idn] NFC vs NFKC)

[John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com>]

David,

I found your note thought-provoking in several respects, although
I don't think along quite the dimensions you intended.  As many
people in the WG know, I'm extremely nervous about permitting
_any_ non-numeric symbol in domain names, where "non-numeric
symbol" can be crudely defined as something that does not
normally appear in the text of sentences (or the equivalent) of
in any language.  I'm especially concerned about symbols that
belong either to the typographical "dingbat" collection or those
that can be (are designed to be?) used to draw pictures.

Whether to have such a prohibition or not is ultimately a policy
problem, not a technical one --symbols pose no special technical
problems as long as we don't try to map similar looking ones--
but we had best figure out how to get an answer or at least some
opinions from people or groups with different perspectives.

But, in the context of those concerns, you wrote, as part of a
technical discussion of mappings, utility, and appropriatenes of
various Unicode characters:

>   (It's not clear why the Rupee sign should have a compatibility
>   mapping to "Rs", when the same doesn't apply to other currency
>   symbols - e.g. the Pesata sign does not have a compatibility
>   mapping to "Pts". In any case, that doesn't really matter,
>   since currency symbols are not useful in domain names.)

"Not useful", it seems to me, is somewhat in the eye of the
beholder.   For example, the term "Micro$oft" appears fairly
often in satirical (or sometimes just snide) articles, email, and
so forth.  I assume that, in the same spirit, if the dollar sign
character were available, there would be many applicants for
micro$oft.com as a domain name, and a fairly frightening
controversy as to whether it constituted legitimate satire (i.e.,
"free speech") or a trademark infringement.  I would assume that
there are similar potential puns and other amusing substitutions
of currency symbols in other languages or mixtures of them.

Again, this has nothing to do with your compatibility mapping
argument with which, from my very limited knowledge, I'm inclined
to agree, but with the "usefulness" of the currency symbols
themselves.

    john