[idn] IDN charter update - revision 5

["James Seng/Personal" <jseng@pobox.org.sg>]

Changes from v4

Drop "Hence this enhancement to the DNS involves only end-user software.
No other modules within the DNS will need to be changed."

-James Seng

Domain Names are Internet identifiers. They are used both for
machine and human processing, so the form of a Domain Name must
be convenient for both processing venues.  The current set of valid
Domain Name characters is limited to common Internet ASCII, which
is inadequate for the broad range of human Internet users.  This
working group will produce a standards-track specification for
extending the range of characters that can be used in Domain Names,
by humans. The enhancement will be designed to minimize changes to
existing Domain Name software and operations. In particular, changes
to the DNS infrastructure of storage and exchange mechanisms will
be avoided.

The technical approach for the current specification effort shall be to
permit use of international character, as recommended by the IAB, and
then encode the characters, to permit their transmission and storage
within existing DNS mechanisms.

Language information is not embedded in these identifiers.  That is,
"names" from different languages are defined in a single namespace.

The WG will rely on, and reference, work from established efforts to
internationalize digital characters, such as, Unicode Consortium and
ISO/IEC.  Discussion of new codepoints, codepoint properties and
mappings between codepoints is appropriate for these other venues,
and is out of scope of this working group.

The group will not address the question of what, if any, body should
administer or control usage of names that use this functionality.

The group will identify consequences to the current deployed DNS
infrastructure, the protocols and the applications as well as transition
scenarios, where applicable.

The working group will actively ensure communication with interested
groups who are studying the same, or related, topics.

The Action Item(s) for the Working Group are:

1.  An Informational RFC specifying the requirements for providing
International character sets in domain names. The document should
provide guidance for developing solutions to this problem, taking
localized (e.g. writing order) and related operational issues into
consideration.

2.  A standard track specification on permitting international
characters in domain names, including specifying any transition issues.

3.  A standard track specification on an ASCII Compatible Encoding
(ACE), to be used in the standard track specification on permitting
international characters in domain names.

4.  A standard track specification on normalization of domain
name identifiers for the purpose of string comparisons. This document
may
include case folding, map outs, prohibited characters, and what is
acceptable as hostnames.

Goal & Milestone:

Dec 2001        ACE specification send to IESG for advancement

Dec 2001        domain name identifiers normalization draft last call
Jan 2002        domain name identifiers normalization draft send to IESG
                for advancement

Nov 2001        Draft of architecture relating input methods, namepreps
                and zonefiles
Dec 2001        Second draft of architecture draft
Feb 2002        Architecture draft last call
Mar 2002        Architecture draft send to IESG for advancement

Dec 2001        IDN Protocol draft wg last call
Jan 2002        IDN Protocol draft send to IESG for advancement