Re: Layer 2 and "idn identities" (was: Re: [idn] what are the IDN identifiers?)

[DougEwell2@cs.com]

Liana wrote:

> Please provide your reasoning.

Certainly, and I apologize for the tone of my previous post.

1.  I did NOT agree with the concept of language tagging or script tagging of 
DNS identifiers, either for all scripts or for just a subset of scripts such 
as CJK; and I HAVE said so in the past.  DNS "names" are identifiers, and 
they are *not* necessarily words or true "names" in any natural language.  I 
mentioned the examples of "altavista.com" and "teoma.com" to show that domain 
names need not be identifiable as to language.  Liana responded that it was 
not necessary to identify the language of those two examples, since they were 
unambiguously representable in the Latin script, whereas domain names encoded 
with CJK characters could be mappable to other CJK characters.  But I, and 
others, HAVE stated many times that to provide a SC/TC mapping strategy that 
works for some characters but not others, and could provide some nasty 
surprises for Japanese users who do not equate these characters as the 
Chinese do, does not seem to be a viable part of IDN.  It might be a nice 
marketing solution, but it is not an engineering solution.

2.  I did NOT agree that, had I and others remained silent about the proposed 
language-tagging scheme (which was not true in any event), this would have 
amounted to some sort of approval of the idea; and I DID say so.  Others on 
this list, who have far more experience than I in IETF working groups, have 
stated that this is not the way IETF WGs operate.  Consensus is more commonly 
gauged using straw polls or by compiling lists of participants in favor of 
the idea and opposed to the idea, not by "pocket acceptance."

Having said this, I understand that Liana was trying to demonstrate approval 
of continuing the discussion, not necessarily approval of the idea itself, 
and I don't want to be in the position of trying to pre-empt the introduction 
of new ideas.  So I suppose it wouldn't hurt to look at the I-D, see what we 
think of it, and make our opinions known at that point.  But it is NOT the 
case that "nobody disputed" either this point or (1) above, and to say so 
made it seem like the author was merely ignoring opposing voices.

In a message dated 2001-12-01 20:05:03 Pacific Standard Time, 
liana.ydisg@juno.com writes:

> On Sat, 1 Dec 2001 21:04:13 EST DougEwell2@cs.com writes:
>
>> In a message dated 2001-12-01 16:35:38 Pacific Standard Time, 
>> liana.ydisg@juno.com writes:
>>
>>> Since nobody disbute with me, I take it as we are agree to
>>> the above discussion.   I'd like to refer to my  I-D 
>>> draft-liana-idn-map-00.txt  for more discussion in this 
>>> direction.
>>
>> I absolutely DID dispute both the notion of language-tagging of IDN 
>> identifiers *and* the notion of tacit agreement to a non-consensus 
>> idea.  But 
>> I guess that wasn't the answer the author was looking for.
>
> Please provide your reasoning.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California