Re: [idn] Moving the IDN RFCs from Proposed to Draft Standards

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

At 1:24 AM -0500 11/6/03, John C Klensin wrote:
> It was my understanding of the agreements when the IDN documents 
> were approved that, when they went to Draft, the Draft versions 
> would incorporate a better statement of applicability and scope than 
> the original versions and, in particular, would incorporate the gist 
> of the "IESG Statement" on IDN applicability and missing pieces. 
> That agreement does not appear to be reflected in the text of the 
> new drafts.

Just before the problem statement in draft-hoffman-rfc3490bis-01.txt, 
it says "The IESG issued a statement on IDNA [IESG-STATEMENT]." I 
didn't want to put the statement in directly because the IDNA authors 
didn't write the IESG statement, and it could dilute the value of the 
statement by making it appear to be something we did. However, seeing 
your concern, I'll ask the IESG about what they would prefer on this. 
I'm happy either way.

> Since the purpose of IDNA is to deliver native-text characters to 
> end user applications and the presentation to the user, there is a 
> case to be made that the "interoperable implementations" condition 
> needs to be demonstrated with actual, end-user-oriented, 
> applications that deliver non-ASCII characters to users.

Fully agree.

>   That is, interoperability between test environments that can 
> demonstrate the ability to prepare, code, and decode strings is not 
> sufficient to demonstrate that interoperable and conforming 
> implementations are possible.

That is being debated in other parts of the IETF right now, but 
fortunately, it isn't an issue here.

>   I can't tell from the IDNConnect "final report" whether that 
> stronger condition was met by those programs but, if it was not, 
> some serious community discussion on this issue is probably in order.

Right. We specifically didn't list the participants because doing so 
made it easier for more organizations to test. Having said that, I 
can certainly say that many of the participants were testing "actual 
end-user-oriented applications".

In my previous message, I said:

   Subsequent to the event, I have validated one (unnamed, pre-release)
   IDNA system passes all the tests that it should pass, and fails all
   the test that should fail, as specified in the test description.

That implementation is still unnamed and pre-release, but it is very 
definitely a "actual end-user-oriented application". There are many 
other such applications available, although some of them are useful 
only in particular regions.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium