Subject: Re: [idn] Intro to my I-D

From: Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 11:17:56 -0400

[I've added [email-masked] back to the cc'd list.
 Harald, please read and reconsider the "principle of least surprise".
 Thx.]

Ben,

What you've proposed is that for some collection of code-points, and for
some equivalency rules (whether zone-scoped or global-scoped), allocation
of one code-point in the collection results in pre-allocation (reservation)
of all code-points in the collection.

Additionally, you've proposed the registrant (recipient of the allocated
code-point equivalency class) may then modify the equivalency rule which
created the class, and assert distinct semantics for distinct elements of
the original (intact), now fragmented class.

To help me understand your proposal, I'll consider ASCII strings and the
Pan-Algonquin "OU" character (U+0222) and (U+0223). A locally constructed
French character, not present in 17th century French. I know that most of
the North Americans and Europeans will find this choice strange, but more
accessible, as "Indian French", than an ideogramatic example, and I know
that my friends at CNNIC will speak to the Chinese language specifics.

Assertion: (zone scope)

	In the Algonquin-preferred zone(s), e.g., abenaki.dst.me.us,
	the following code-points and code-point sequences are
	equivalent:
		U+0070		"8"	when in an alpha-string
		U+0222		"8"	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OU
		U+0223		"8"	LATIN SMALL LETTER OU
		U+0117,U+0125	"OU"
		U+O117,U+0165	"Ou"
		U+0157,U+0165	"ou"
		U+0127		"W"
		U+0167		"w"

Under your proposal, in my zone (abenaki.dst.me.us.), with ASCII case folding
(applied to the two Latin Extended-B code points), the registrant for
"ki8na.abenaki.dst.me.us" ("ki8na" means ourselves or nous-memes), would be
allocated or reserved:

		ki{set of 4 code-point sequences}na.abenaki.dst.me.us 

The registrant could then be able to associate between 0 and eight unique
ip addresses to these 4 allocated domain names in my zone, e.g.,

	ki(U+0070)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.1
	ki(U+0222)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.2
	ki(U+0223)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.2
	ki(U+0117,U+0125)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.3
	ki(U+O117,U+0165)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.3
	ki(U+0157,U+0165)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.3
	ki(U+0127)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.4
	ki(U+0167)na.abenaki.dst.me.us and 1.2.3.4

Without case folding there could be 8 distinct addresses rather than just 4.

This would be very surprising to a modern literate North-Eastern Indian, and
to scholars of the Contact Period and French and Indian literatures of the
17th and 18th centuries. As the abenaki.dst.me.us zone manager, I don't think
I would allow it. I would expect the equivalency rule (above) to be adopted
by the {penobscot,passamquoddy,maliseet,micmac}.dst.me.us zone managers, and
by other "Algonquin-aware" NSN.US zone managers. I would not expect these to
be adopted by the dst.me.us or superior zone managers. I would expect the same
rule and scope to exist in the .ca zone and its dependent zones.

My preference is that ki{set of 4 code-point sequences}na.abenaki.dst.me.us
all map to a single internet address.

In the Chinese language area, which includes North America as well as China,
your "registrant election" proposal appears to have the same surprising set
of consequences as one registrant following one ideosyncratic convention for
"ki8na" and another registrant, possibly the same one, following a different
ideosyncratic convention for "ni8na" (we and you or nous et vous), and this
only gets worse as we consider strings such as k8sk8ranmsh8dans8 (sift).

Just what makes your proposal superior?

Eric

P.S. The advantage of [30], formerly "in" the IDN WG requirements draft, was
that it made zone-specific semantics possible. Writing in modern Abenaki (or
any "8" using French-originating modern script) using ASCII equivalency rules
presents a problem for 0x70 to 0x127,0x167 mapping (simplest case).

---

From: "ben" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 09:17:04 -0400

Hi Eric,

As you are probably somewhat aware, I am indeed working very hard.  I
want you to know that I am keeping all your questions /input in the
back of my mind as I work and that can only help.  So I just want to
thank you for all your efforts.

The only question I want to address at this moment is something that
caught my eye.  At the very end of your email below, you concluded by
saying- "Just what makes your proposal superior?".  Perhaps this is a
good time to reiterate what I said at the very beginning:

My system recognizes the same equal importance for:

1.  Registrants given the freedom/choice to point Tradition CDN to
tradition website and Simplifed CDN to simplified website.
2.  A need for Tradition CDN to Simplified CDN conversion.

(However, I also believe that other CDN systems are absolutely fine
exactly the way they are.)

Thanks
Ben Chan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine" <[email-masked]>
To: "ben" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "xiang deng" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2001 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: [idn] Intro to my I-D

Ben,

What you've proposed is that for some collection of code-points, and
for
some equivalency rules (whether zone-scoped or global-scoped),
allocation
of one code-point in the collection results in pre-allocation
(reservation)
of all code-points in the collection.

Additionally, you've proposed the registrant (recipient of the
allocated
code-point equivalency class) may then modify the equivalency rule
which
created the class, and assert distinct semantics for distinct elements
of
the original (intact), now fragmented class.

To help me understand your proposal, I'll consider ASCII strings and
the
Pan-Algonquin "OU" character (U+0222) and (U+0223). A locally
constructed
French character, not present in 17th century French. I know that most
of
the North Americans and Europeans will find this choice strange, but
more
accessible, as "Indian French", than an ideogramatic example, and I
know
that my friends at CNNIC will speak to the Chinese language specifics.

Assertion: (zone scope)

Under your proposal, in my zone (abenaki.dst.me.us.), with ASCII case
folding
(applied to the two Latin Extended-B code points), the registrant for
"ki8na.abenaki.dst.me.us" ("ki8na" means ourselves or nous-memes),
would be
allocated or reserved:

The registrant could then be able to associate between 0 and eight
unique
ip addresses to these 4 allocated domain names in my zone, e.g.,

Without case folding there could be 8 distinct addresses rather than
just 4.

This would be very surprising to a modern literate North-Eastern
Indian, and
to scholars of the Contact Period and French and Indian literatures of
the
17th and 18th centuries. As the abenaki.dst.me.us zone manager, I
don't think
I would allow it. I would expect the equivalency rule (above) to be
adopted
by the {penobscot,passamquoddy,maliseet,micmac}.dst.me.us zone
managers, and
by other "Algonquin-aware" NSN.US zone managers. I would not expect
these to
be adopted by the dst.me.us or superior zone managers. I would expect
the same
rule and scope to exist in the .ca zone and its dependent zones.

My preference is that ki{set of 4 code-point
sequences}na.abenaki.dst.me.us
all map to a single internet address.

In the Chinese language area, which includes North America as well as
China,
your "registrant election" proposal appears to have the same
surprising set
of consequences as one registrant following one ideosyncratic
convention for
"ki8na" and another registrant, possibly the same one, following a
different
ideosyncratic convention for "ni8na" (we and you or nous et vous), and
this
only gets worse as we consider strings such as k8sk8ranmsh8dans8
(sift).

Eric

P.S. The advantage of [30], formerly "in" the IDN WG requirements
draft, was
that it made zone-specific semantics possible. Writing in modern
Abenaki (or
any "8" using French-originating modern script) using ASCII
equivalency rules
presents a problem for 0x70 to 0x127,0x167 mapping (simplest case).

---

From: Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 11:09:01 -0400

Ben,

Now that Deng and I have had the chance to develop your ideas in this series

> tradition website and Simplifed CDN to simplified website.

Restated in the sense of [30]:

	[30bis] Within a single equivalence class ["zone"],
	the registrant ["zone manager"] MUST be able to define
	traditional/simplified Chinese equivalence rules
	that suit the purpose of the registrant [zone].

	Such defined equivalences MUST [MUST NOT] remove equivalences
	that are assumed by (old or local-rule-ignorant) caches.

That is the scope issue. To paraphrase Harald Alvestrand, this creates
a possibility of "maximal surprise".

As Deng pointed out, your #1 has a geometric scailing property, with
any character string of N Chinese characters having 2^^N zone file
representations, when the character string is a name label. As a UTF-8
Chinese string may be up to 21 three-octet characters long, and each
character may have one (or more!) equivalences, this yields 2,097,152
possible distinct "names" reserved from one SC or TC IDN registration.
Slightly smaller numbers are used in the ACE discussions, so here I use
18.

A zone with bi-modal length distribution of Chinese business names, with
clusters at 8 characters and 18 characters, and 1M distinct registrants,
would have a zone file with 130,000,000,000 entries.

	.5M x 2^^8 + .5M x 2^^18 (dual "short" and "maximal" form)
	1.28e+08   + 1.31e+11 (xcalc numbers)

This appears to be "very large". You are aware of this, neh?

> 2.  A need for Tradition CDN to Simplified CDN conversion.

This goal, which you state your system recognizes with equal importance as
for goal #1, appears to be depricated (impossible) by the requirements of
goal #1.

Further, as I mentioned previously, and above in the stilted language of
scope for rules, the "conversion" is per-registrant, and effects a private
system of translating names to addresses.

What is the key value for users "opting out" of SC/TC equivalences?

Eric

---

From: "ben" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 14:34:02 -0400

Hi Eric,

For over 2 years I have been working on a CDN system that takes the
benefits from other CDNs and combine them to form a supreme.  Within
that time, I have also gathered thousands upon thousands of
registrations, criticism, enquiries, ideas, needs, suggestions, etc,
from ordinary everyday people all over the world- from China to Canada
and everywhere else in between.

I am surprised that you can come to a conclusion in 2 days... and
without even reading my I-D.  However, I do appreciate someone with
your brilliant mind and technical knowledge constantly on my back as
that will only serve to help us all.

Thanks,
Ben Chan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine" <[email-masked]>
To: "ben" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine" <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: [idn] Intro to my I-D

Ben,

Now that Deng and I have had the chance to develop your ideas in this
series

Slightly smaller numbers are used in the ACE discussions, so here I
use
18.

A zone with bi-modal length distribution of Chinese business names,
with
clusters at 8 characters and 18 characters, and 1M distinct
registrants,
would have a zone file with 130,000,000,000 entries.

> 2.  A need for Tradition CDN to Simplified CDN conversion.

This goal, which you state your system recognizes with equal
importance as
for goal #1, appears to be depricated (impossible) by the requirements
of
goal #1.

Further, as I mentioned previously, and above in the stilted language
of
scope for rules, the "conversion" is per-registrant, and effects a
private
system of translating names to addresses.

Eric

---

From: "James Seng/Personal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 11:01:24 +0800

Ben,

Wearing my i-DNS.net hat, there is a research work we been doing on
Onomastic Normalization Engine (ONE) for Chinese, Japanese and Korean
for registration purposes.

For your I-D on Chinese, maybe it is worthwhile for you to take a look
at ONE-C. You can find it at
http://playground.i-dns.net/one/onec_sum.htm

-James Seng

---

From: "ben" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 23:46:54 -0400

Hi James,

Thanks, I will take a look at it.  If I have any questions, I will
email you.

Ben Chan

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Seng/Personal" <[email-masked]>
To: "ben" <[email-masked]>; "Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine"
<[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 11:01 PM
Subject: Re: [idn] Intro to my I-D

Ben,

-James Seng