Subject: [idn] Searching for IDN free software implementations (Perl and Java)

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 17:08:32 +0200

Hello,

Since http://www.i-d-n.net/ is terribly outdated, I'm looking for help
here.

We plan to register IDNs "soon" in ".fr". Our legacy software is in
Perl and Java. I need IDN "free as in free speech, not free as in free
beer" implementations for both.

For Perl, I could write a XS to the excellent GNU libidn or to MDNkit
but I hope someone else did it before the lazy guy I am. The
implementation in <URL:http://www.imc.org/nameprep/> is quite outdated
and I wonder if I can reasonably use it?

For Java, one (not me) could use the JNI to call GNU libidn but I
would prefer a native Java solution, easing the deployment to various
platforms without recompilation.

Any advice? ("Reprogram everything in Python" is a good advice but
unrealistic, I'm afraid.)

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 08:56:14 -0700

In the ICU 2.6 release, we are including an IDNA implementation for C,
if you can call into that. ICU is open source, under the X Licence:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/

Mark
________
[email-masked]
IBM, MS 50-2/B11, 5600 Cottle Rd, SJ CA 95193
(408) 256-3148
fax: (408) 256-0799

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephane Bortzmeyer" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 08:08
Subject: [idn] Searching for IDN free software implementations (Perl
and Java)

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 09:04:21 -0700

>and I wonder if I can reasonably use it?

No, and I thought I had removed it a while ago. I have now. Please 
see <http://www.imc.org/idna/>. All the IMC-created Perl code there 
is free as in speech and beer. It relies on charlint.pl, the W3C's 
Perl-based normalizer that Martin Dürst created; that has a separate 
license.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 13:35:46 +0200

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:08:32PM +0200,
 Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]> wrote 

> beer" implementations for both.

Solutions I've found:

Java) Verisign GRS distributes a SDK (Software Development Kit) to its
registrars. It includes a full IDN (RFC 3490 and friends)
implementation in Java. It seems well written and documented. There is
no public site for the distribution, if you are not a Verisign
registrar, you have to ask Verisign for a copy. The licence is BSD
(without the ad clause).

ICU for Java <URL:http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu4j/index.html> will
include IDN in a future version.

Perl) Paul Hoffman's test tool is written in Perl, and free. It is not
a ready-to-use, shrinkwrapped library (for instance, there are
hardcoded paths in the code). Requires Perl >=
5.8. <URL:http://www.imc.org/idna/> 

For Perl, we'll try to develop an XS interface, allowing to use GNU
libidn, written in C.

---

From: "Adam M. Costello" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 18:08:20 +0000

Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Verisign GRS distributes a SDK (Software Development Kit) to
> its registrars.  It includes a full IDN (RFC 3490 and friends)
> implementation in Java.  It seems well written and documented.  There
> is no public site for the distribution, if you are not a Verisign

If the license is BSD, that means anyone who has a copy may redistribute
it from a public site.  That would probably help bugs get discovered
sooner.

AMC

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 10:40:33 -0700

>5.8. <URL:http://www.imc.org/idna/>

Right: it's just a test tool. Anyone familiar with Perl will see lots 
of places where it is quite inefficient.

>For Perl, we'll try to develop an XS interface, allowing to use GNU

That would be a great service to the IDN community! If you do it, I'm 
happy to put it up on the IMC site for people to test with.

--Paul Hoffman, Director