Subject: [idn] Planning ahead for good IDNs

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 Jan 2001 18:13:06 -0000

There seems to be widespread agreement, even among ACE proponents, that
we will _eventually_ move to UTF-8 domain names.

This means that some programs will have to be upgraded. Obviously we
should be warning people _now_. Let's publish an RFC pointing out that
these programs will have to be fixed.

We can also prevent any long-term length problems by recommending that
programs allow 255-byte local parts and 255-byte domain names.

---Dan

P.S. I'm not trying to suggest ACE-now-UTF-8-later as an IDN compromise.
A direct move to UTF-8, with nameprep isolated in the user interface as
I described, will give us a smoothly functioning IDN system within a few
years. ACE will cost much more, because many more programs will have to
be replaced; even after the subsequent move to UTF-8, it will take years
to eradicate all the annoying ACE displays.

---

From: "Brian W. Spolarich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 19:52:10 +0000 (GMT)

On 12 Jan 2001, D. J. Bernstein wrote:

| There seems to be widespread agreement, even among ACE proponents,
| that we will _eventually_ move to UTF-8 domain names.

  There is?  I can't say I myself detect a rough consensus based on the
recent conversation in the WG, or in private conversation.  There still
seem to be at least three credible camps:  ACE only, ACE transition, and
UTF-8 only.

  -bws

---

From: "Brian W. Spolarich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 20:33:46 +0000 (GMT)

On Fri, 12 Jan 2001, Marc Blanchet wrote:

| and the more "exotic" ( a friendly joke targetted to John K.):
| directory, new class, etc... which, because of their property can use
| or not encodings at all, more work to be done on that side tho.

  My working model has been that the IDN WG is going to come up with
something to address current i18n needs, and that the 'exotic' stuff will
be punted to a new WG.

  Am I close? :-)

  -bws

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:11:54 -0500

>seem to be at least three credible camps:  ACE only, ACE transition, and

and the more "exotic" ( a friendly joke targetted to John K.): directory, 
new class, etc... which, because of their property can use or not encodings 
at all, more work to be done on that side tho.

;-)))

Marc.

>   -bws

Marc Blanchet
Viagénie inc.
tel: 418-656-9254
http://www.viagenie.qc.ca

----------------------------------------------------------
Normos (http://www.normos.org): Internet standards portal:
IETF RFC, drafts, IANA, W3C, ATMForum, ISO, ... all in one place.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 18:16:05 -0500

--On Friday, 12 January, 2001 15:11 -0500 Marc Blanchet
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> >> | There seems to be widespread agreement, even among ACE
>> proponents, | that we will _eventually_ move to UTF-8 domain
>> names.
>> >>   There is?  I can't say I myself detect a rough consensus
>>   based on the recent conversation in the WG, or in private
>> conversation.  There still seem to be at least three credible
>> camps:  ACE only, ACE transition, and UTF-8 only.
> > and the more "exotic" ( a friendly joke targetted to John K.):
> directory, new class, etc... which, because of their property
> can use or not encodings at all, more work to be done on that
> side tho.

I would add to Marc's list an observation made on this list
several times before (but apparently as frequently forgotten).
Since it was first introduced, there has been feeling in some
parts of the community that UTF-8 is discriminatory toward, or
relatively disadvantageous to, languages in the "upper" part of
the UCS-2 (and beyond) code point sets.  Whether or not that is
true depends on the metrics used.  However, for those who are
concerned about that issue, and dislike UTF-8 as a consequence,
most or all of the ACE schemes (and other schemes, including
UCS-4 itself, that produce codes that are length-independent of
code points) are going to be more acceptable.

Consequently, claims about "widespread" belief that UTF-8 is the
correct long-term solution require at least some qualification.

I think we have drawn closer together, but, at one time, the
level of enthusiasm for UTF-8 in the non-ASCII community could
be predicted by taking the inverse of the numerical position of
the last character in the script used by that community in the
Unicode/10646 code tables.

     john

---

From: "J. William Semich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 18:40:19 -0500

Please see:

http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/NU-MLDNS

".NU Domain's Statement pertaining to MLDNS(tm) multilingual DNS"

The following was received January 10, 2001
From: "J. William Semich" <[email-masked]>

In accordance with section 10 of RFC 2026, and although it has yet to
submit a contribution to the Internet Standards Process, .NU Domain hereby
states that it has filed for patent protection in connection with the
MLDNS(tm) multilingual DNS technology described at:
http://www.worldnames.net/mldns/

J. William Semich
.NU Domain
266 Main St., Suite 31
Medfield, MA 02052

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Jan 2001 00:38:53 -0000

> There is?

Apparently so. I see a few people saying that big-endian UCS-4 would be
better, but none of them claim that Internet protocols are actually
going to move in that direction.

> There still seem to be at least three credible camps:  ACE only, ACE
> transition, and UTF-8 only.

I don't see any serious support for the ACE-now-and-forever position.

The rest of us, the UTF-8 people and the ACE-now-UTF-8-later people, all
agree that some programs are going to have to be fixed. Sendmail's
address handling should be made 8-bit-clean, for example, and cc:Mail
should allow 255-byte local parts and 255-byte domain names.

The IDN WG can and should issue an immediate warning for implementors.

---Dan

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 16:52:28 -0800

Since much of what you describe on that page is unpatentable (given 
that it embodies things that were published as Internet Drafts), 
could you be more specific about what your patent application covers? 
Thanks!

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

---

From: Jorge Amodio <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 20:06:57 -0500

> http://www.worldnames.net/mldns/

returns: Error Occurred While Processing Request

Jorge.

---

From: "James Seng/Personal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 10:47:25 +0800

I realised that even tho there are "unpatentable" stuff (like published I-D,
open ideas on mailing list etc), it does not prevent some from trying to file
a patent for it in the hope that

a) a slim chance the patent examiners let it thru
b) a patent-pending is useful for business reasons
   in fact, it makes sense just to keep it at this 'patent-pending' stage as
long
   as possible especially if it is really "unpatentable".

I have been asked to review at least 4 patent filed on the topic of IDN and
most, if not all are almost unpatentable IMHO.

ps: No, I am not commenting on Worldnames' here because I have yet to see it.

-James Seng

---

From: Marc Tamsky <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 Jan 2001 18:58:44 -0800

>>>>> On 13 Jan 2001 00:38:53 -0000, "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]> said:

>  I don't see any serious support for the ACE-now-and-forever position.

Agreed.  As a final product, it would be the ugliest hack next to IMAP
to come out of the IETF lately.

>  The IDN WG can and should issue an immediate warning for implementors.

Agreed.

From RFC-2277:

   But it is the responsibility of the WGs to ensure that whenever
   responsibility for internationalization is left to "another layer",
   those responsible for that layer are in fact aware that they HAVE
   that responsibility.

I think this applies to the local parts issue that was recently
brushed off as "another layer problem" -- those responsible for local
parts need notice as well.

In no way should readers of either warning be led to believe that by
implementing the necessary changes to support ACE, that they are done
upgrading their programs to support internationalized DNS.

Without a clear set of transition elements, guidelines for
implementation, and test suites, ACE-now-UTF-8-later will create a
credible demand for UTF-8 in other systems.

All those who face changes to their systems, also face the questions:
"Do I update my programs twice to work with ACE-now-UTF-8-later, or
just do the work once for UTF-8?"

-- 
Marc Tamsky <[email-masked]>

---

From: "J. William Semich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 23:59:57 -0500

Interesting observations. Worldnames/NU domain faced the same question -
should we plan to upgrade twice? 

We decided it didn't make sense. Instead, we decided to base the whole .NU
ML system in UTF-8, but provide for transparent ACE support/compatibility.
Kind of like "HDTV-ready."

Others might consider the same, or perhaps are already doing so.

Bill Semich

At 06:58 PM 1/12/01 -0800, you wrote:
<snip>
>just do the work once for UTF-8?"
Bill Semich
President and Founder
WorldNames, Inc.
http://www.worldnames.net
[email-masked]

---

From: William Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 01:48:47 -0500 (EST)

> The IDN WG can and should issue an immediate warning for implementors.

A warning along the lines of RFC2277 aka BCP18 would be good, perhaps a
bit more strongly worded.

-Bill

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:23:06 -0500

> we will _eventually_ move to UTF-8 domain names.

This is complete fantasy on your part.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 12:22:44 -0500

> I don't see any serious support for the ACE-now-and-forever position.

that's because you see what you want to see, not because you have
a realistic assessment of people's positions.

the way in which IDNs are used in the context of applications that
currently support only ASCII DNS names, is not for this group to 
decide.  some protocols might want to move to UTF-8, others not.

Keith

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Jan 2001 21:00:48 -0000

As I said, I don't see any serious support for the ACE-now-and-forever
position.

> a realistic assessment of people's positions.

Let me see if I have this straight. You support ACE-now-and-forever? You
don't think Sendmail will ever have to be made 8-bit-clean? You object
to the IDN WG publishing a warning for implementors? And you think your
position is widely shared?

Or do you not, in fact, support ACE-now-and-forever, but you think that
there's serious support for it anyway? Who else has expressed support?

> decide.  some protocols might want to move to UTF-8, others not.

I disagree. The IDN WG is a complete waste of time if it can't look
beyond the DNS protocol.

---Dan

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 18:58:23 -0500

> As I said, I don't see any serious support for the ACE-now-and-forever

That's because you are establishing a false dichotomy between
"ACE now and forever" on one hand and "UTF-8 eventually" on the other.
There's a lot of middle ground between those two, which I might
characterize as "ACE in the near-term, and as for eventually, 
wait-and-see what makes sense"  And "what makes sense" might be 
different from one protocol to another.

Keith