Subject: WG Action: Internationalized Resource Identifiers (iri)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:00:01 -0800 (PST)

A new IETF working group has been formed in the Applications Area.  
For additional information, please contact the Area Directors or the WG
Chairs.

Internationalized Resource Identifiers (iri)
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Current Status: Active Working Group

Chairs:
 Ted Hardie ([email-masked])

Applications Area Directors:
 Lisa Dusseault ([email-masked])
 Alexey Melnikov ([email-masked])

Applications Area Advisor:
 Alexey Melnikov ([email-masked])

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Description of Working Group:

This working group will produce
* A new version of RFC 3987: "Internationalized Resource
Identifiers (IRIs)" using draft-duerst-iri-bis as the base
* A new version of RFC 4395: "Guidelines and Registration
Procedures for New URI Schemes"

The new version of RFC 3987 may be split into separate documents,
if, in the opinion of the chair(s), it would facilitate distribution
of the workload and allow more focused reviews. For example, the
following breakdown has been suggested:

* Handling of Internationalized domain names in IRIs (BCP)
* Internationalization Considerations in IRIs (guidelines
for BIDI, character ranges to avoid, special considerations) (BCP)
* Syntax, parsing, comparison of IRIs (Standards track)

The working group starts with a relatively mature update to
RFC 3987 in preparation; the primary focus of the group
is to resolve conflicting uses, requirements and best practices
for internationalized URLs/URIs/IRIs and various other forms,
among many specifications and committees, while moving toward
consistent use of IRIs among the wide range of Internet
applications that use them. In particular:

* The IRI specification(s) must (continue to) be suitable
for normative reference with Web and XML standards from W3C
specifications. The group should coordinate with the W3C working
groups on HTML5, XML Core, and Internationalization, as well
as with IETF HTTPBIS WG to ensure acceptability.
* The IRI specification(s) should be follow best practices
for domain names. The group should coordinate with the IETF
IDNABIS working group and Unicode Consortium to assure acceptability.
* Explicit review by experts on (and native speakers) of RTL
languages, of the recommendations for BIDI languages,
is required.

The Working Group will examine at least one and possibly more
URI/IRI schemes to check that the new specification(s) are
appropriate for existing schemes. The exact schemes to be
reviewed will be decided by the WG.

Changes to RFC 3986 ("Uniform Resource Identifier (URI):
Generic Syntax") are explicitly out of scope of this charter,
and may only be considered with a charter update.

Goals and Milestones:

Feb 2010  Publish initial version of the WG documents
May 2010  Working group Last Call of all documents
Jun 2010  Publish IRI documents as RFCs (BCP, standards track, as 
          appropriate)