Re: [idn] WG last call summary

["D. J. Bernstein" <djb@cr.yp.to>]

Robert Elz writes:
> All the work here is for the benefit of other protocols, the DNS
> (which never had a problem with domain names in any char set whatever)
> is being mangled to make life easier for other protocols that really
> should have been fixed years ago.

Exactly.

The IDNA documents claim, in attempting to justify IDNA's archaic 7-bit
character encoding, that 8-bit names would break DNS servers. There is
not a shred of evidence for that claim. See the message from the BIND
company to the IDN mailing list dated Mon, 12 Mar 2001 11:39:29 +1100.

The real problems are the 8-bit bugs in some HTTP clients, some SMTP
clients, and Sendmail. See http://pi.cr.yp.to. DNS is not the issue.

Of course, IDNA demands an upgrade from every client in the world,
including clients that already work fine with UTF-8: the MacOS X version
of Internet Explorer 5.1, for example, and many UNIX programs running
under the UTF-8 xterm. Even worse, we're going to have to go through
_another_ massive upgrade for mailbox names and for every other
internationalization target.

How much pain is the IETF willing to inflict upon the universe before
admitting that 7-bit software is obsolete? Is it really so hard to
understand how much the users will benefit from settling on UTF-8?

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago