Subject: [idn] proposed wg charter, goal & milestone update

From: "James Seng/Personal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 09:27:21 +0800

[Please ignore last mail: It got send out by accident.]

Apologise for the late update as it taken some time to get the wordings
right. I shall list all the changes first and then the complete charter
below. Please comment.

Changes 1: Add wordings to clarify the concept of "names vs identifiers"

"Domain names is one form of identifier. It does not have the technical
capability to encode names or languages information."

Changes 2: Add wordings to clarify DNSEXT & IDN WG

"The WG work may modify the DNS protocol and other related work
undertaken by the DNSEXT WG. But such changes must be co-ordinated with
the DNSEXT WG."

Changes 3: Add wordings to clarify IDN WG & other I18N organization

"The WG will reference work from ISO/IEC, the Unicode Consortium and
other established I18N group as much as possible. The consideration are
the policy and principle adopted by the I18N group on the stability of
published codepoints and future addition of codepoints. The discussion
of new codepoints, codepoints properties and mappings between codepoints
are out-of-scope for the working group and should be done in other
relevant expert group."

Changes 4: Remove Action Item 2: comparison RFC

As discussed with Paul, this is no longer a document he wish to
continue.

<remove>2. An Informational RFC or RFC's documenting the various
proposals and Implementations of Internationalization (i18n) of Domain
Names. The document(s) should also provide a technical evaluation of the
proposals by the Working Group.</remove>

Changes 5: Add Action Items to reflect IDN current work

3. A standard track specification on an ASCII Compatible Encoding
   (ACE). This may or may not be used in the standard track
   specification on access to internationalized domain names.

4. A standard track specification on normalization of identifiers
   for the purpuse of comparisons. This document may includes case
   folding, map outs, and prohibited characters.

Changes 6: Update goal & milestones

Nov 2001    Nameprep RFC wg last call
Dec 2001    Nameprep RFC send to IESG for advancement
Nov 2001    First draft of architecture draft specifying the
            relationship between input methods, namepreps and zonefile
Dec 2001    Protocol RFC wg last call
Dec 2001    Second draft of architecture draft
Jan 2002    Protocol RFC send to IESG for advancement
Feb 2002    Architecture draft last call
Mar 2002    Architecture draft send to IESG for advancement

-James Seng

--- CUT HERE ---
Description of Working Group:

The goal of the group is to specify the requirements for
internationalized access to domain names and to specify a standards
track protocol based on the requirements.

Domain names is one form of identifier. It does not have the technical
capability to encode names or languages information.

The scope of the group is to investigate the possible means of doing
this and what methods are feasible given the technical impact they will
have on the use of such names by humans as well as application programs,
as well as the impact on other users and administrators of the domain
name system.

A fundamental requirement in this work is to not disturb the current use
and operation of the domain name system, and for the DNS to continue to
allow any system anywhere to resolve any domain name.

The WG work may modify the DNS protocol and other related work
undertaken by the DNSEXT WG. But such changes must be co-ordinated with
the DNSEXT WG.

The WG will reference work from ISO/IEC, the Unicode Consortium and
other established I18N group as much as possible. The consideration are
the policy and principle adopted by the I18N group on the stability of
published codepoints and future addition of codepoints. The discussion
of new codepoints, codepoints properties and mappings between codepoints
are out-of-scope for the working group and should be done in other
relevant expert group.

The group will not address the question of what, if any, body should
administer or control usage of names that use this functionality.

The group must identify consequences to the current deployed DNS
infrastructure, the protocols and the applications as well as transition
scenarios, where applicable.

The WG will actively ensure good communication with interested groups
who are studying the problem of internationalized access to domain
names.

The Action Item(s) for the Working Group are

1. An Informational RFC specifying the requirements for providing
   Internationalized access to domain names. The document should
   provide guidance for development solutions to this problem,
   taking localized (e.g. writing order) and related operational
   issues into consideration.

2. A standard track specification on access to internationalized
   domain names including specifying any transition issues.

3. A standard track specification on an ASCII Compatible Encoding
   (ACE). This may or may not be used in the standard track
   specification on access to internationalized domain names.

4. A standard track specification on normalization of identifiers
   for the purpuse of comparisons. This document may includes case
   folding, map outs, and prohibited characters.

Goal & Milestone:

Nov 2001    Nameprep RFC wg last call
Dec 2001    Nameprep RFC send to IESG for advancement
Nov 2001    First draft of architecture draft specifying the
            relationship between input methods, namepreps and zonefile
Dec 2001    Protocol RFC wg last call
Dec 2001    Second draft of architecture draft
Jan 2002    Protocol RFC send to IESG for advancement
Feb 2002    Architecture draft last call
Mar 2002    Architecture draft send to IESG for advancement

---

From: David Hopwood <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 03:56:46 +0100

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> capability to encode names or languages information."

The DNS *could* encode language/script information (or relations between
corresponding names in different languages/scripts); all that would need
is a new RR. What is true is that the names themselves are not language-
tagged.

Also, the requirements draft makes a useful distinction between domain
names (which are octet strings) and host names (which are character
strings). Both are identifiers.

I suggest:

  "Domain names and host names are forms of identifier. Language
  information is not encoded in these names; that is, names from
  different languages are defined in a single namespace."

- -- 
David Hopwood <[email-masked]>

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