Subject: Re: [idn] time to move

From: Dan Oscarsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 16:13:05 +0200 (MEST)

:
>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idn-idna-01.txt
>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idn-nameprep-03.txt
>
>These documents may have further revisions. Final revision would be sent 
>for wg last call. The ACE design team is waiting for the confirmation of 
>the wg orientation to propose to the wg the ACE choice.
>	The chairs would like to make an electronic straw poll to reverify the 
>concensus obtained in december. 

I have for some time thought that we should start deciding on what to
do, but I do not think we are ready to say idna/nameprep.
We have decisions to do before that:

1) Are we going to use UTF-8 only? (and accept that this will force
   many applications to get fixed, that otherwise could wait a long time
   with fixing).

2) If the answer to 1) is No, the an ACE will be nedded.

   The we get: Is the goal to have UTF-8 as nativ format in DNS in
   the future, or are we going to use ACE forever?
     - If we are going for UTF-8 then ACE is a transition mechanism.
       The ACE should then be simple and fast to implement.
     - If we are going for ACE forever, the ACE selected need to
       be compact so that as many characters can be included in
       as few bytes as possible.

3) If the goal is UTF-8.
   - ACE support should be declared to end at a curtain date, say 2010.
   - The best solution then is to use something like UDNS, which
     supports both the future UTF-8 and the ACE/IDNA backward
     compatibility mechanism.

   Dan

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 11:01:05 -0400

>    many applications to get fixed, that otherwise could wait a long time

this was not the design team recommendation and perceived wg concensus. 
This electronic straw poll is to find if the wg still think the 
idna-nameprep-ace is the way to go. If we find no concensus on 
idna-nameprep-ace proposal, then we go back to the drawing board.

Marc.

>        as few bytes as possible.

the ACE design team is working on that. If there is a concensus of the wg 
for idna-nameprep-ace, then the ACE design team will hopefully come to the 
wg with a recommendation.