Subject: Re: FYI: BOF on Internationalized Email Addresses (IEA)

From: Zefram <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:31:15 +0000

Dave Crocker wrote:
>                                               This poses a fundamental
>barrier for users needing mail addresses to be expressed in a richer set of
>characters,

I have yet to see this "need" established.  Everyone who has supported
internationalised mail addresses has axiomatically assumed such a need,
and has conspicuously failed to provide any more detail, such as any of
Keith Moore's suggestions.

I think the first task in this area should be to investigate the nature
and degree of desire for non-ASCII local parts.  This desire needs to
be weighed against the benefits we derive from writing all local parts
in a small, fixed alphabet (ASCII printables).

-zefram

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From: Zefram <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:13:06 +0000

Mark Crispin wrote:
>                                       In many regions where Latin
>diacriticals are used, there is no acceptable transform of a surname to a
>form that does not use diacriticals.  Simply omitting the diacritical
>causes (at least to the inhabitants of those regions) a misspelling.

Ah, this one's easy.  Local parts aren't limited to Latin letters,
they can use all the ASCII printables.  Diacriticals are available
there, albeit in characters that are shared with other uses.
<[email-masked]> is a perfectly valid email address already.
It doesn't start to get tricky until we get into the eastern European
languages -- ASCII only intentionally provides western European
diacriticals.

Cue the debate about whether the diacritic should go before or after
the base letter.

-zefram

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From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 01:20:58 -0600

On 10/27/03 at 6:42 PM -0800, Dave Crocker wrote:

>RB> Even though, given IDNA now exists as a proposed standard, the main
>RB> issues relate to the local part, the issue under discussion is that of
>RB> internationalized mail addresses, not just internationalized
>RB> local-parts.
>
>Really?  What work needs to be done, except for local part?  IDNA takes care
>of the right-hand side.

Please review John Klensin's draft before making these kinds of assumptions.

>RB> Restricting the disucssion to local-parts runs the risk of excluding
>RB> other potentially relevent issues.

I agree. Limiting discussion at this point to local-part does not 
take into account some of the possibilities.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <http://wwww.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 18:42:26 -0800

Roy,

 >> Mail Internationalised Local-Part (MILP)

So what is there to do about "internationalized mail addresses" other than the
local part?

RB> Restricting the disucssion to local-parts runs the risk of excluding
RB> other potentially relevent issues.  For instance, one of the issues
RB> that has been discussed on the IMAA list is whether full-width at
RB> should be recognized in an internationalized mail address.

full-width _where_?  somewhere other than local part?

if yes, then how can that be practical?  if no, then the charter does not
preclude their use.  (if you think otherwise, please explain.)

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 01:13:50 -0800

Pete,

>>RB> other potentially relevent issues.
PR> I agree. Limiting discussion at this point to local-part does not
PR> take into account some of the possibilities.

That was exactly the intent of the text.

We have already seen how nicely the text served to bring into pretty stark
relief one bit of expectation from one of the proposals. It is only fitting to
have it serve the same purpose for another one.

IETF BOF time is pretty lousy for an open-ended chat.  Having specifications
to chat about is only marginally better than not having them.

What makes the real difference is having serious focus to the meeting. If we
go into this meeting without even having a clear sense of the scope of the
problem to be tackled, then the chance of having a productive meeting is
pretty small.

At the moment, it appears that the focus of the meeting is likely to be:
Shall we break existing Internet mail or shall we lay an enhancement on top of
it that preserves the installed base.  (I'm sure that everyone else who was
present at the pre-MIME/ESMTP discussions is really looking forward to
repeating the experience.)

d/