Subject: Fw: [idn] IDN WG Last Call on two major changes to Stringprep

From: "James Seng" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 11:56:51 +0800

this is a reminder that this wg last call will end on 28th july 2002, 23h59
GMT-5

-James Seng

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Seng" <[email-masked]>
To: "IETF/IDN WG" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, July 07, 2002 4:06 PM
Subject: [idn] IDN WG Last Call on two major changes to Stringprep

> The IETF last call have been concluded and the latest version of
> Stringprep is in the I-D directory:
>
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-hoffman-stringprep-04.txt
>
> Other then editorial changes, there are two significant changes*:
> - Reference Unicode 3.2, updating all the tables from 3.1 to 3.2.
> - Additional Bidirection characters handling, Section 6 and Appendix D.
>
> The co-chairs is conducting a working group last call on these two
> significant changes. Please send any proposed modification of text to the
> wg mailing list as well as the wg co-chairs, stating clearly the text to
> be modified and the new text.
>
> This three weeks WG last call will end on 28th July 2002, 23h59 GMT-5.
> (We have a three weeks last call instead of the usual two weeks for those
> who is busy preparing for IETF Yokohama)
>
> Marc & James
> co-chairs
>
> * The previous of Stringprep can be found at
> http://www.potaroo.net/ietf/old-ids/draft-hoffman-stringprep-03.txt
>
>
>

---

From: Erik Nordmark <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 15:47:15 +0200 (CEST)

Folks,

I'd like to make sure that these changes to stringprep have been well-reviewed.
There hasn't been much discussion on the list which could be due to at least
two different reasons:
 - the changes are good, well understood, etc. thus there is nothing
   to comment on
 - not many people have read and understood the changes

In order to be able to tell the difference I'd appreciate a note (to the
list or directly to me) saying you've reviewed and understood the
changes.

Thanks,
  Erik

---

From: Yoshiro YONEYA <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 23:13:25 +0900 (JST)

Dear AD and all,

> list or directly to me) saying you've reviewed and understood the

I've reviewed the new I-Ds and understood the changes.  I think the
changes are good.

Regards,

-- 
Yoshiro YONEYA <[email-masked]>

---

From: "Adam M. Costello" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 00:58:50 +0000

Erik Nordmark <[email-masked]> wrote:

> In order to be able to tell the difference I'd appreciate a note (to
> the list or directly to me) saying you've reviewed and understood the
> changes.

I have reviewed and understood the changes to Stringprep, and approve
of them, with the following disclaimer:  While I understand the new
bidi rules and their implications, I do not fully understand the
motivation for the new rules, because I don't understand the Unicode
bidi algorithm.  I am trusting the opinion of the bidi experts that the
rules are needed.

AMC

---

From: "Adam M. Costello" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 21:41:54 +0000

I wrote:

> of them...

I forgot about one minor technical issue that I starting discussing with
the authors a while back, but that discussion fizzled out.

One of the changes to Stringprep is the addition of two new prohibited
characters, U+0340 and U+0341 (combining grave/acute tone marks).  These
characters are prohibited because they are deprecated, and for no other
reason.  The previous draft of Stringprep also prohibited deprecated
characters, but the reason for their prohibition was something else
(they "change display properties"), and the fact that they were
deprecated was incidental.

I see no real harm in prohibiting these two characters, and no real need
to prohibit them either.

But Nameprep (or any other profile) will not be able to follow this
precedent of prohibiting deprecated characters in the future.  If
subsequent versions of Unicode deprecate more characters, Nameprep will
not be able to prohibit them, because section 7.1 forbids later versions
of a profile from prohibiting characters that were allowed in earlier
versions of the profile.

Why start down a path that you can't stay on?  Perhaps deprecation alone
should not be considered sufficient reason for including a character in
the prohibition lists.

As I said, this is a minor issue.  I don't think it really matters
whether these two characters are prohibited or not, I just think they
might end up looking like anomalies in the future.

There is a related issue that is purely editorial, not technical.  If
these two characters are prohibited, I don't see why the categories
"change display properties" and "deprecated" should be merged into a
single section, as they are in the current draft.  They have nothing
to do with each other, except that there happen to be some characters
that could fall into either category.  This is not the only instance
of overlap.  The "change display properties" category overlaps with
the "control characters" category, and yet those two are not merged.
Similarly, the "inappropriate for plain text" category overlaps with
the "control characters" category, and those two are not merged.  For
consistency, I think the "deprecated" category, if it is retained,
should get its own section.

AMC

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 06:57:08 +0900

I have reviewed the new draft, and am very happy with the update
to Unicode 3.2 and with the inclusion of rules for bidi, which
will avoid confusions for conversion between visual and logical order
(i.e. display and digital representation). I have not checked the
new Unicode 3.2-based data in detail.

Regards,  Martin.