[idn]

["JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@jefsey.com>]

Thank you for your responses.

> On 07:24 01/09/02, Adam M. Costello said:
> Various people have had various discussions trying to come to a common
> understanding of the precise meanings of "domain name" versus "host
> name", with very little success.  Just about the only thing everyone
> agrees on is that every host name is a domain name, but some domain
> names might not be host names.  Settling this type-of-names issue is
> beyond the scope and ability of this working group.

This is my point. As you say IDNA is only a mechanism. It may apply to any 
semantic made of labels linked by dots. I also feel there are several 
issues related to the specific use of the names. In removing references to 
the usage of the names, we would have a stable universal system. Special 
adaptations for particular uses, if there are some, would be understood as 
particular cases. Would this not be more logical and easier to maintain?

> > - I am concerned about using a concept (international) for another
> > (multilingual) when the international concept may become another issue
> > with national DNS views.

> I don't know exactly what the difference is between internationalization
> and multilingualization.  I think one reason the latter term was
> not used is that domain names have no language tag.  Maybe there
> were other reasons, or maybe it was arbitrary.

From my understanding one of the issue is about real life typographies 
(language oriented).

I am in the Eurolinc bootstrap (European languages as Minc and Ainc). 
Impossible to make anyone understand that we care both about the 
"international" .eu domain names (ie supporting accents, etc..) and about 
"multilingual" .eu sites (ie presenting the same information in different 
languages)

We asked a small set of 30 people (gov, university, press, managers, 
France, Africa, Europe). Most understood International domain names as 
".eu" domain names (vs national ccTLDs ones). All of them qualified what we 
name "international domain names" as multilingual or "natural language". 
All said the current domain names were "international" since they could be 
internationally used on International keyboards. All said : ICANN is 
International,  so are International "ICANN Domain Names".

We plan to run a general questionnaire on domain name issues all over 
Europe this falls. We may add that question?  The most asked question was 
"I have a .fr name without accent, will AFNIC bundle the natural French 
accentuated name as a comprehensive package?".

1/ when asked about the IETF process two linguists responded 
"naturalization" for transforming "international" names into local language 
names, and "globalization" or "internationalization" when transforming 
local language names into ASCII Names.

2/ The "International domain name issues" are more easily understood as 
international naming issues vs domestic access control. Examples: Viet-Nam 
domestic/international views, French Justice vs Yahoo, Judge Garzon in 
Spain. Two said that an International domain name was a name the local Gov 
would warranty against international pressure (like an "off-shore" domain 
name).

3/ when explained about current terminology, most found it confusing. Two 
said they felt hurt because it was negative discrimination against "non US 
speaking users".

Most probably worth to consider. IMHO multilingual Internet names support 
is what we talk about. But you are better English speaker than me.

> > 2.  I am confused about the implications of the proposed change of
> > part 7.
> Are you referring to the first paragraph of section 7?  The change
> between idna-09 and idna-10 was a failed attempt at clarification.  The
> forthcoming idna-11 rewords that paragraph as:

yes.

>    Existing DNS servers do not know the IDNA rules for handling
>    non-ASCII forms of IDNs, and therefore need to be shielded from
>    them.  All existing channels through which names can enter a DNS
>    server database (for example, master files [STD13] and DNS update
>    messages [RFC2136]) are IDN-unaware because they predate IDNA, and
>    therefore requirement 2 of section 3.1 of this document provides the
>    needed shielding, by ensuring that internationalized domain names
>    entering DNS server databases through such channels have already
>    been converted to their equivalent ASCII forms.
> Does that help?

I suppose it does. But is it that complex? One year from now most will ask 
themselves about "existing": are there changes? Also about "channels": are 
there other ways to enter the DNS?

Also, does that means that sometimes the DNS is going to become 
Unicode?  The impact on automation via Internet may be very negative as it 
introduces possible instablity, "layer violation" (cf. Leissig) leading to 
an over complexity in the mechanical interface.

> > Could we not just define a "DNS character set" (as "0-9 a-Z -."
> > today) and say that it can extend with DNS specifications.

> The DNS standard (RFCs 1034 and 1035) has already defined the DNS
> character set to be US-ASCII.  (It allows all octets 0..255, but the
> character set is ASCII; the standard assigns no interpretation to octets
> 128..255.)

OK. Poor wording of mine. I meant "DNS names character set", or any more 
adequate wording than my Frenglish, to tell "the characters authorized in 
ASCII domain names, at any given time".

> Does that answer your question?  If not, I must not understand your
> question.

Yes, it does. Thank you.
jfc