Re: [idn] some comments about draft-ietf-idn-idna-08.txt

[Paul Hoffman / IMC <phoffman@imc.org>]

>"Codogno Maurizio (Rozzano)" <m.codogno@saritel.it> wrote:
>
>>  Sect. 4.1., para 4.  I think that an explicit failure condition should
>>  be added at the various steps of the algorithm (3, 5, 8)
>
>Oh dear, we lost some crucial text between drafts 7 and 8.  Draft 7
>said:
>
>     ToASCII fails if any step of it fails.  If any step fails, the
>     original sequence MUST NOT be used as a label in an IDN.
>
>In draft 8, this was changed to:
>
>     It is important to note that the ToASCII operation can fail. If the
>     ToASCII operation fails on any label in a domain name, that domain
>     name MUST NOT be used as an internationalized domain name. The
>     application needs to have some method of dealing with this failure.
>
>Paul, we need to restore the original statement.  We can also retain the
>new advice (the last sentence of the draft-8 version).  The result would
>be:
>
>     ToASCII fails if any step of it fails.  If any step fails, the
>     original sequence MUST NOT be used as a label in an IDN.  The
>     application needs to have some method of dealing with this failure.
>
>(Another instance of the draft-8 version still appears in section 1.1,
>so we don't lose anything by doing this.)

Adam: my first request is that you clear this kind of thing with your 
co-authors before you post them to the mailing list. We made that 
change after a lot of discussion with lots of parties, and it looks 
bad if one of the authors says "we need to change this" without all 
of us having thought about it.

My second request is that you explain to me how your proposed text 
would work in the real world. If any step fails for one label, your 
text says that the original sequence must not be used, but it does 
not say what should be used. I think the text in -08 is clearer than 
what you have. Why do you want the change?

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium