Subject: Re: draft-duerst-dns-i18n-02.txt

From: "Martin J. Duerst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 18:20:53 +0900

At 13:14 99/07/28 +0700, Robert Elz wrote:
> I think that you're saying here, that if your system knows UTF-5, you
> can have a UTF-5 domain name, and send me e-mail from that name, and that
> my system which knows nothing of UTF-5 will be able to interpret the name
> and reply to you - your address will look ugly, but it will still meet
> the syntax requirements of everything that matters, and be functional.

Yes, exactly.

> I'm afraid I have never been able to give much
> credence to the possibility of that, and the parallel tree that it implies,
> is practical in any sense at all.   It would mean that to allow anyone to
> have a UTF-5 name in .AU I would need to create an AU.i domain, and under
> that COM.AU.i - and unless I were to want to immediately add a large number
> of lame delegations to the DNS, I'd have to administer it separately, only
> adding delegations when requested, while somehow attempting to ensure that
> control of sub-domains rested with the same people who run the equivalent
> COM.AU domains.   Thanks all the same, but no thanks.

Yes, indeed. This may have advantages and disadvantages.
If you are the administrator of .au, and you don't understand
or have a way to check e.g. Chinese registrations, then
for security reasons as well as for e.g. trademark reasons,...,
maybe you should not register any e.g. Chinese names.

But of course then that shouldn't inhibit the administartor
of xyzcompany.com.au to add Chinese host names if he/she
can deal with that.

I think it's not very surprising that Microsoft prefers UTF-8
whereas the iDNS people prefer UTF-5: Microsoft is mainly concerned
(at least that's my guess) with i18n at the left end of a domain
name (i.e. host name), whereas in Singapore, the assumption that
one would start with i18n from the TLD/SLD was quite easily taken.

Regards,   Martin.

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, World Wide Web Consortium
#-#-#  mailto:[email-masked]   http://www.w3.org