Re: [idn] hostname history hell

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

--On Wednesday, 21 November, 2001 17:29 +0800 "James
Seng/Personal" <jseng@pobox.org.sg> wrote:

>> The primary job of the WG is not to figure out a way to
>> include anything that someone might think is useful.   The
>> job is to incorporate international character identifiers
>> into the DNS (I hope we all understand by now that "names" is
>>...
> I agree with you above...But we seem to arrived in different
> conclusion:
> 
> I arrived to the conclusion because our job is to confirmed
> itself to "incorporate international characters", then
> "picture-drawing" or "symbol" been part of "international
> characters" should be allow in IDN.

We clearly disagree.  I suggest that the goal was international
alphabetic/ ideographic characters, e.g., the things that are
used to write "words" as a surrogate for identifiers.  The WG
_selected_ Unicode as the best available coding base for, and
list of, such characters (a rational decision, IMO).   Unicode
drags some baggage along with it in terms of "picture-drawing",
"symbols", etc.  Our decision to select Unicode does not, and
should not, implies that those blocks of code points are
"international characters".

> Whether it is allowed in IHN is another question, one that
> have wordings like "users requirements", "usefulness", "market
> research", "policies" and something this wg may or may not be
> able to handle.
> 
> OTOH, you concluded that "picture-drawing", "symbol" etc
> should not be allowed in IDN because it is not "clearly-needed
> (and ideally lowest-risk)".
> 
> Both views are correct. We are drawing very very fine lines
> here.

Absolutely.  And, if we get it seriously wrong, the DNS becomes
ambiguous and unmanageable, and we have no way back.  Hence,
conservatism is in order, IMO.

    john

> 
> -James Seng
> 
> 
> 
>