Re: [idn] WG last call summary

[tedd <tedd@sperling.com>]

>On Mar 19, "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@cr.yp.to> wrote:
>
>>  Go sell a Greek user an ``internationalized domain name'' with a delta,
>>  Pete. Then tell him that most of his correspondents will see the delta
>>  as incomprehensible gobbledygook rather than a delta. See what he says.

Okay, I'm not Greek, but as the registered owner of �.com, I'll tell you*.

I expect that some windoze users will display it (�.com) as a box dot
com; mac users will display it as a delta dot com; and everyone else
will display it as a bq--eida.com (RACE), or dq--uuyg.com (DUDE), or
zq---h9g.com (AMZ_C), or punycode, or whatever -- AND, they will
continue to do so until they have the appropriate software on their
machines to handle the conversion. That's what I expect.

On the other hand, I do not expect that the IDN will eventually
produce something that will transparently produce the appropriate
glyphs on millions of users machines. In my mind, that's simply not
possible because I think it requires that every machine on this
planet have a complete copy of UNICODE installed and available.

Granted, I am clueless about a lot of this IDN stuff and I may be
"hubris" (as Mr. Paul Hoffman once informed me) in my offering my
opinion to the "Gods of the Internet", but I do think I see the
distinction between which side of the modem one is on and what
responsibility lies in each camp.

>OK, scenario 1:
>
>You tell him that although it's gobbledygook to people without greek
>alphabet support, it will still work. It's not convenient, but it WILL work.
>Guaranteed. For his business colleagues and friends in Greece, who DO have
>the latest and greatest software, it will display as a delta. His ISP hasn't
>had to upgrade, and everybody in the world can use his domain - eventually
>they will see it as a delta as well, but for now they see it as an encoded
>string they can still use no problem.
><-snip>
>If you were IT director of a large firm, and you had a choice as to which to
>roll out, which would you choose?
>
>--
>Paul Robinson

I would vote for scenario 1. Besides, IMHO (in my hubris opinion)
that's the only way it's going to work.

tedd

* The Greek version of "delta" registers a internal error -- it's the
Math language set that provides an acceptable "delta".
--
http://sperling.com