Subject: Re: [idn] Document Status?

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 01:31:39 +0200

Sorry, I confused lists and sent it on ietf. I apologize. jfc

On 01:40 09/09/02, Ted Hardie said:
>For those who are helping registries understand the impact of all of this, 
>it may be useful to repeat this mantra at frequent intervals, so that they 
>understand that their restrictions, desires, and preferred
>mappings simply do not exist at the protocol level.  Any attempts to 
>restrict, to establish mappings or otherwise satisfy their desires should 
>not rely on protocol action

which protocol? there are only "text processing" functions.
you mean that these functions are universal. True.
you also mean that here the application of these functions is universal.
True, but IMHO this is WG mission creep. This comes from the use of a 
prefix which is only a suggestion.

RFC 920: every host will be in the domain ".arpa".
IDNA: every IDNA will be of the "he iesg--xxxx" format.

This creates a left to right hierarchy in the domain name space, 
conflicting with the right to left one. This new hiearchy is related to a 
first function. So this is a functional hirearchy. Who will manage it, how, 
will it be recursive when new functions will be added? And most important 
point "which one has the lead"?

I cannot see any of these problems in my parallel domain scripting scheme, 
which only consists in hiding upper level labels including "--"?
jfc

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From: "Adam M. Costello" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 02:01:29 +0000

"JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> IDNA: every IDNA will be of the "iesg--xxxx" format.
>
> conflicting with the right to left one.  This new hiearchy is related
> to a first function.  So this is a functional hierarchy.  Who will
> manage it, how, will it be recursive when new functions will be added?
> And most important point "which one has the lead"?

A single function does not constitute a hierarchy.  There will be
a single prefix that means "warning: this label might need to be
transformed in a certain way in order to be intelligible to users".
Theoretically, there could someday be a second prefix that means
something else, but nothing like that is even on the horizon, so it's
premature to be worrying about it.  If and when that time comes, the
questions you pose will be considered and answered.

> I cannot see any of these problems in my parallel domain scripting
> scheme, which only consists in hiding upper level labels including
> "--"?

I'm not sure I remember that scheme, but I think it involved
interdependencies between the labels in a name.  The working group
rejected all such schemes long ago.  Labels are often inspected and
manipulated individually, so it's best if IDNA does not introduce any
interdependencies between the labels in a name.

AMC

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 05:37:01 +0200

>questions you pose will be considered and answered.

Sorry, but there are already two levels:

1. with prefix
2. without prefix

This makes a new hierarchy because it creates a difference where DNS knows 
none ...

>interdependencies between the labels in a name.

The DNS is recursive. You only consider a label in relation with the label 
above.
jfc

---

From: "Adam M. Costello" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 04:59:21 +0000

So what?  You're concerns were:

> Who will manage it?  How?

Currently there is nothing to manage.  The IDNA spec defines how to
handle all text labels, both the ones with the prefix and the ones
without the prefix.

> Will it be recursive when new functions will be added?

Currently there is only one function, so we don't need to know the
answer to this question yet.

> And most important point "which one has the lead"?

Currently there is only one function, so we don't need to know the
answer to this question yet.

If and when a second function is contemplated, the questions you pose
will be considered and answered.

> > Labels are often inspected and manipulated individually, so it's
> > best if IDNA does not introduce any interdependencies between the
> > labels in a name.
>
> The DNS is recursive.  You only consider a label in relation with the
> label above.

It would be nice if that were true, but it's not.  Sometimes people use
non-fully-qualified domain names.  For example, it's common for someone
logged into foo.cs.berkeley.edu to send mail to user@cs, or to visit
http://www/.

AMC