Re: [idn] An ignorant question about TC<-> SC

["ben" <ben@cc-www.com>]

Hi John,

I understand and respect your knowledge/opinion (as I recall reading
something you wrote on the history of gTLD and ccTLD) on the
difficulties of setting up another type of script hierarchy for the
<idn>.<idn>.

However, if one day it is indeed brought to the table, I most
certainly would like your vote of confidence (assuming that I have not
missed other technical difficulties that you see with it.)

Thanks
Ben



----- Original Message -----
From: "John C Klensin" <klensin@jck.com>
To: "ben" <ben@cc-www.com>
Cc: <idn@ops.ietf.org>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: [idn] An ignorant question about TC<-> SC


> --On Friday, 26 October, 2001 10:20 -0400 ben <ben@cc-www.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi John,
> >
> >>
> >> For those who want the history, at least as I remember it,
> >> read on...
> >>
> >
> > Thanks for the history lesson and I now have a much better
> > understanding of all the efforts that have gone into this.  So
> > I have the same question for you as I do for Martin.  Why
> > can't we simply label an IDN with the what language script it
> > is in.  In my opinion, it is much more important for an IDN
> > user to know "what script the IDN is in" and far less
> > important to know "if the IDN will take them to a company or
> > goverment or military or organization website".
>
> I'm not sure I understand your question, but I think you are
> asking a basic question about the organization of the DNS.
> I.e., if we decide languages are really important, why don't we
> reorganize things into a language-based hierarchy, rather than a
> country-and-function-based one?
>
> The only _technical_ answers are that it would be hard to get
> there from here, and that, given the administrative nature of
> the DNS delegation structure, finding a single, agreed-upon,
> authority for each language would be extremely hard.  There are
> also a number of administrative obstacles, not the least of
> which is that many people would not agree with your opinion.
>
> I hate to keep saying this, but your question takes me back to
> what I think is the basic problem here.  The DNS was designed to
> provide identifiers for computer resources, using an
> administrative structure that was fairly convenient for those
> computer resources.  If we need to find names, or understand
> strings, along other dimensions, we are either going to need to
> remove the problem from the DNS or we are going to be faced with
> tradeoffs among a range of undesirable solutions.
>
>     john
>
>