Subject: Re: [dnsext] RE: On adoption of two drafts ...

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 19:58:22 -0400

Hi,

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Alfred HÎnes <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Vaggelis Segredakis wrote:
>
> > In the .gr ccTLD we have presented in 2005 the option of registering
> > IDN domain names in Greek.  The Greek language requires for all
> > multi syllabus words to have an accent sign called "tonos" over
> > one of the letters.  [...]
>
> Unfortunately, hereby we apparently are back at one of the greatest
> ratholes ever seen in DNS internationalization.
>
> Wasn't it one of the fundamental characteristics of the DNS that
> DNS labels are _not_ "words" (in any language), but simply abstract
> _identifiers_ in a more user friendly alphabet than IP addresses?
>

While the problem might appear to be "words", I would argue that it is
subtlety different from that. The problem might appear to be words, but it
is primarily script systems.

Users of a particular script system have expectations built up over a
lifetime of use. Users of the Roman script system expect that, much of the
time, there is little if any difference between upper and lower case.

DNS could have been designed to ignore the expectations of users of the
Roman script system and been case sensitive. If so, there would be much less
pressure to provide accommodations for other script systems (Greek, Arabic,
Han, etc.) similar to its Roman case insensitivity. But, because DNS
accommodates the expectations of Roman script system users, users of other
script systems legitimately expect that they will also be accommodated.

Thanks,
Donald

>
> ...
>
>
> Kind regards,
>  Alfred.
>
> --
>
> +------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
> | TR-Sys Alfred Hoenes   |  Alfred Hoenes   Dipl.-Math., Dipl.-Phys.  |
> | Gerlinger Strasse 12   |  Phone: (+49)7156/9635-0, Fax: -18         |
> | D-71254  Ditzingen     |  E-Mail:  [email-masked]                     |
> +------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
>

---

From: Eric Brunner-Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:33:38 -0400

Stephane,

From my perspective, the Arab Working Group on Domain Names erred in
adopting a labels are words framework.

This required them to take a position on strings containing digits,
and as a collateral, on strings containing Latin Script digits, or
"Arabic-Indic digits" (U+0660 - U+0669), or "Eastern Arabic-Indic
digits" (U+06F0 - U+06F9).

Note that the character for the digit written in Latin Script as "5"
looks sufficiently like a glyph representing a human heart that the
use of this character in strings of the form "I-heart-New-York" is
common in signage and informal text.

There are important issues relating to the choice of script a digit is
represented as, having to do with the Unicode BiDi algorithm's
treatment of the "." character as directionality transmitting
punctuation, and to the visual similarity of most of the digits in the
two (U+0660 - U+0669), (U+06F0 - U+06F9) ranges.

I don't suppose the issue will ever be resolved, but it could help to
state it technically.

I encourage anyone interested in Arabic Script also look at the use of
Arabic Chat [1], with digits, as a very common means of writing Arabic
on script limited user interfaces. An example is "hazihi wikibedia al
mawsu3a al 7ora", trans: This is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Eric

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_chat_alphabet

On 5/28/10 3:54 AM, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 04:33:26PM +0200,
>  Alfred Hönes <[email-masked]> wrote 
>  a message of 92 lines which said:
> 
>> Wasn't it one of the fundamental characteristics of the DNS that DNS
>> labels are _not_ "words" (in any language), but simply abstract
>> _identifiers_
> 
> That's what people like John Klensin keep repeating but repetition
> does not make it true.
> 
> Either DNS labels are semantic-free identifiers (like the phone
> numbers), whose sole advantage (but it is a big one) over IP addresses
> is the stability. That way, everyone would be equal, whether they
> speak english or german or greek or arabic. And everyone would be
> unhappy.
> 
> Or DNS labels are mnemonics and it is more convenient but it has bad
> consequences (TLD registration rules, UDRP, etc) and it means we have
> a responsability to be sure that these mnemonics can be written in any
> script (hence IDNA).
> 
> [I used "mnemonics" instead of "words" to emphasize that, even in
> english, you cannot have every name for a DNS label, for instance
> "O'Reilly" or "Bang & Olufsen".]
> 
>> I vaguely recall from IDNA discussion on the use of IDNA with the
>> Arabic languages (and scripts) that it had been reported to the IETF
>> community that "The hardest part in this work was to escape from the
>> (mis)concept of a couple of stakeholders that DNS labels were
>> 'words' in one of the Arabic languages and therefore linguistic
>> rules would have to be superimposed on DNS labels."
> 
> It is not a misconcept.
> 
> 
>

---

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 10:35:28 -0400

Hi,

I have often tried to explain to people that the relationship between labels and words is a happy coincidence and they should not count on it.

Other then people who either have at least one foot in the IETF environment and some old timers, almost no one accepts that and most people I talk to think it is an absurd idea.

The fact as Donald says, so many words and phrases do exist in the LDH ASCII labels, i.e. there are many happy coincidences, has convinced almost every non-latin as-a-first language  speaker I know that they should be able to have names that make sense in their script/languages as words and phrases .

So while it is fine to maintain the purity of 'labels are not words' in the technical requirements, there should not be an expectation that the users will necessarily find that a satisfactory solution.  And, possibly, allowing for as many happy coincidences as possible would be a good thing.

a.
(mostly a lurker)

On 4 Jun 2010, at 19:58, Donald Eastlake wrote:

> While the problem might appear to be "words", I would argue that it is subtlety different from that. The problem might appear to be words, but it is primarily script systems.
> 
> Users of a particular script system have expectations built up over a lifetime of use. Users of the Roman script system expect that, much of the time, there is little if any difference between upper and lower case.
> 
> DNS could have been designed to ignore the expectations of users of the Roman script system and been case sensitive. If so, there would be much less pressure to provide accommodations for other script systems (Greek, Arabic, Han, etc.) similar to its Roman case insensitivity. But, because DNS accommodates the expectations of Roman script system users, users of other script systems legitimately expect that they will also be accommodated.
> 
> Thanks,
> Donald
>  
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
>  Alfred.
> 
> --
>

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 12:10:43 -0400

On Wed, Jun 09, 2010 at 10:35:28AM -0400, Avri Doria wrote:

> Other then people who either have at least one foot in the IETF
> environment and some old timers, almost no one accepts that and most
> people I talk to think it is an absurd idea.

[no hat]

Well, not completely absurd, of course, if you point out both that
nobody can register "can'twait.com" and that .com isn't a word anyway.
People get that DNS labels aren't just words in English, in the normal
sense.  Most users aren't stupid: they understand that there are
computerish rules that are different from English or French or Arabic,
and that there are just going to be limits on what can be
accommodated.

But the DNS is, after all, designed to be useful to humans.  Telling
people with a Chinese keyboard that they have to write in ASCII is
not as useful as it could be.  "example.com" is a useful name for
someone who speaks English, but is not dramatically better than
"192.0.2.3" for a unilingual person whose language isn't written in
Latin characters.

[hat]

All of that said, it would be most helpful if WG participants had a
look at the recently-posted proposed charter, and chimed in with
whether they think taking on this work for real, with the proposed
schedule, is a good idea.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:29:17 +0800

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Avri Doria" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 10:35 PM
> Subject: Re: [dnsext] RE: On adoption of two drafts ...
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 

 in .com registry, there are millions of domain names and many of labels are words.

how many words are there in the english? If there are a millon words in the english, I bet that  90% of them can be used as DNS labels.

so the relationship between labesl and word are not coincidence since the  percentage is so high.

so your statement "the relationship between labels and words is a happy coincidence and they should not count on it." 

should be changed to "the NON-relationship between labels and words is a happy coincidence and they should not count on it."

>
> Other then people who either have at least one foot in the IETF environment and some old timers, almost no one accepts that and most people I talk to think it >is an absurd idea.
>

maybe , you only speak to the people whose native language is english.

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:21:33 +0000

> From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
> Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:29:17 +0800
> ...
> so your statement "the relationship between labels and words is a happy
> coincidence and they should not count on it." 
> 
> should be changed to "the NON-relationship between labels and words is a
> happy coincidence and they should not count on it."

+1.

---

From: "Vaggelis Segredakis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:52:30 +0300

Dear Andrew,

I am interested in participating in this WG but the proposed schedule is
sending the xNAME discussion in 2011. Isn't there any way to speed things
up?

Regards,

Vaggelis Segredakis

>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email-masked]
[mailto:owner->[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan
>Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 7:11 PM
>To: [email-masked]

---

From: "Vaggelis Segredakis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:08:19 +0300

Dear Avri,

If the case is as simple as you suggest, I wonder why the users do not
prefer the type xn--hxabldgabihbtf2bh7g3aai.gr over an IDN domain name?

Domain names are labels/mnemonics and not words, I agree with you.
Unfortunately most people use words when they have to memorize something. If
Latin speaking people can use words in a way that makes sense, the same
should be true for every one who can use IDNs.

However, the xNAME discussion has come to a point where it is beyond the
label itself, it is DNS. Why two DNS trees cannot be the same if a user
wishes so? Why DNAME+CNAME fail and DNAME is working on the layer below but
not on the specific layer it starts from? The questions to be answered
belong to the DNS world and a solution to this issue will be welcomed by
many.

Kind Regards,

Vaggelis Segredakis

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 5:35 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [dnsext] RE: On adoption of two drafts ...

Hi,

I have often tried to explain to people that the relationship between labels
and words is a happy coincidence and they should not count on it.

Other then people who either have at least one foot in the IETF environment
and some old timers, almost no one accepts that and most people I talk to
think it is an absurd idea.

The fact as Donald says, so many words and phrases do exist in the LDH ASCII
labels, i.e. there are many happy coincidences, has convinced almost every
non-latin as-a-first language  speaker I know that they should be able to
have names that make sense in their script/languages as words and phrases .

So while it is fine to maintain the purity of 'labels are not words' in the
technical requirements, there should not be an expectation that the users
will necessarily find that a satisfactory solution.  And, possibly, allowing
for as many happy coincidences as possible would be a good thing.

a.
(mostly a lurker)

---

From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:30:59 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Sullivan" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: [dnsext] RE: On adoption of two drafts ...

> schedule, is a good idea.

for the Goals and Milestones about alias names in the proposed charter,
I suggest:

June 2010      new charter discussion in WG
July 2010       New charter to IESG
July 2010       DNS name same problem statement discussion
Sept 2010       Adoption of the drafts of dns name same solution as WG items 
Nov.  2010       WG consensus on new or revised RRTYPEs for DNS tree aliasing
                         work
Dec  2010       Interoperation testing on new or revised RRTYPEs for
                DNS tree aliasing (particularly with existing deployed code)

 Mar. 2011       DNS name same problem statement draft to IESG
 Apr. 2011         Document on new RRTYPE or revised RRTYPE handling for
                         DNS tree aliasing to IESG

Nov  2011       Document on in-zone metadata for DNS tree aliasing to IESG
Nov  2011       Document on uses and limitations of different DNS tree
                         aliasing techniques to IESG

Jiankang Yao

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:43:09 -0400

> sending the xNAME discussion in 2011. Isn't there any way to speed things

This WG (and most others) has a long history of setting short
deadlines and then repeatedly missing them.  In this space, a few
useful comparisons are worth considering.  First, we have the example
of the SHA-2 document, which was a "short" and "easy" document that
nevertheless took a very long time to emerge.  More controversial
documents, such as AXFR-clarify, took even longer.  We've moved the
deliverable dates as a result.

As another point of comparison, let us consider the milestones for the
IDNAbis WG, which included extremely short timelines.  Indeed, the
work ended up being called "IDNA2008" even though it's now the middle
of 2010 and we still don't have the RFCs published.  

I think that state of affairs is absurd.  I do not believe it is
realistic to commit to getting all the specification work of any of
these items complete, particularly with respect to DNSSEC, before the
deadlines that we included.  But note that there is nothing at all
preventing us from working faster: if we have fast revision cycles,
and lots of extensive review, sooner than the dates there
contemplated, then that's just a sign of a healthy, involved, and
interested community coming together to get the work done.  I'm all
for it.  But I'm not going to assume it and then be disappointed.

Note, as well, that this is a volunteer effort.  If we set short
deadlines and then people don't do the work so that we miss them,
there's basically nothing anyone can do about it.  I'd rather have
realistic deadlines that tell people when they can realistically
expect work to be complete.

Note also that I think the work needs actually to get done by roughly
the milestone date.  If we miss the milestone dates by wide margins, I
will (and I think Olafur will too, but I don't want to put words in
his mouth) take that to be an indication that the WG isn't actually
willing to work on this stuff, and that it will not complete.  At that
point we'll have to decide whether the WG ought to give up on the
work.

Best,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:55:05 -0400

> July 2010       New charter to IESG

These of course can't go in the charter, because the charter would need changing ;-)

> July 2010       DNS name same problem statement discussion

The intent is that the charter provide a minimal problem statement.
That's what those two paragraphs are in there for.

> Nov.  2010       WG consensus on new or revised RRTYPEs for DNS tree aliasing

This suggests that we will have two months between adopting the drafts
and forging consensus.  Perhaps I am being pessimistic, but I don't
actually believe that this WG could forge a consensus on the colour of
the sky or whether the sun will come up tomorrow in two months.  We're
just not that co-operative a group.  I don't want to set unrealistic
expectations.  Note, also, that I'm sort of assuming we'll adopt the
drafts in July, in conjunction with out Maastricht meeting.

>                 DNS tree aliasing (particularly with existing deployed code)

There are two problems I see with this.  First, we don't have any
regular IETF meetings secheduled in Dec., which means that this item
would require additional travel by participants.  Given the regular
complaints about IETF travel we hear, that seems like a bad plan.  But
in any case, for this to happen, we need multiple implementers to have
completed their implementation in time for this.  I don't think a
month is a reasonable time frame for that.  Since I also don't think
November is a reasonable time to expect consensus, there's no way I
believe this will happen in Dec.

I put the two consensus-and-interop things together because I think
the emerging consensus (along with actual implementation) will be
totally plain long before that.  This step is basically a formal step:
in the past, we have required interoperability tests rather like what
one has when one moves a document along the standards track _just to
send the documents out_ from the WG when they make big changes of this
sort.  (Cf. DNSSEC.)  We've done this because of the proximity of the
DNS to the Internet brain stem.

>                          aliasing techniques to IESG

I think that the last three documents are basically a package: they
need to hang together in some sensible way, even if they don't rely on
one another.  In particular, the last will certainly refer to the
other two.  So I've set their deadlines together.  

Now, there is _nothing_ that says documents can't proceed faster than
the milestones.  If we have interested and engaged parties, maybe
we'll move much faster than the milestones suggest.  That'd be
excellent.

A
-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:32:40 -0400

At 11:43 -0400 6/10/10, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

>I think that state of affairs is absurd.

>Note, as well, that this is a volunteer effort.

I agree with this.  There have been cases where someone "comes to the 
IETF" asking for the WG to solve a problem.  I guess the "IDN" fits 
the bill, but I am not singling this out as an example of bad 
behavior.

What does it mean to have the WG take on a work item?  Anyone can 
describe an issue as a sketch and some people can describe an issue 
in great detail.  But who is going to provide the solution?

The WG - which has no membership - will have people willing to 
volunteer some approaches.  Much of the time the volunteer won't have 
the resources to commit to going further than a mere high-level 
suggestion.

It's still up to somebody or some small group to "work" to solve something.

Once there's a drafted solution, the WG can offer people willing to 
volunteer critical comments.  The WG won't be able to make the 
solution, just give it a more refined shape.

I've always wondered what it meant for the WG to "adopt" a document. 
I've begun to see a WG's adoption of a document as a millstone around 
the neck of the idea, not a promotion or recognition of an idea. 
Mechanically, the person writing the document does from an author to 
an editor.  After adoption, what is in the document is supposed to be 
the consensus of the group as opposed to one person's perspective. 
Basically, it gets more vetting, that's all.  Yes, that's helpful but 
it will slow progress and tends to retard innovation.

I think the having milestones for a WG is absurd if there is no 
enforcement - by the chairs or anyone else - to meet the schedule. 
Our chairs have little leverage over volunteers, making their job 
particularly hard in enforcing dates.  (If something is due on July 1 
and they have no volunteer committed, what should the chair do?)

It comes to this - if anyone wants anything ("IDN") to be solved, 
they pretty much have to supply the muscle.  The WG isn't going to 
magically generate a solution beyond what's already been offered. 
The "muscle" might be funding some WG volunteers to take this on as 
consultants, if not supplying the expertise.

Saying that the WG's milestones are too far out there and should be 
sooner for a problem is not something that will help progress because 
without anyone supplying the "muscle" to make the solution, the dates 
are meaningless.

For every problem out there, there has to be someone championing it. 
This isn't a role for the chairs, they are there to help the process 
but not to make the progress.  The champion will be the one that 
determines when a milestone will be set regardless of when the chairs 
list on the charter page.

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis
NeuStar                    You can leave a voice message at +1-571-434-5468

Discussing IPv4 address policy is like deciding what to eat on the Titanic.

---

From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:09:47 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Sullivan" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 11:55 PM
Subject: Re: [dnsext] RE: On adoption of two drafts ...

> That's what those two paragraphs are in there for.

Suzanne Woolf, me,xiaodong and Niall O'Reilly have agreed to co-author a draft about dns name same problem based on the bundle names identical dns resolution problem statement draft submitted a few months ago.

Jiankang Yao

---

From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:00:31 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Sullivan" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 11:55 PM
Subject: Re: [dnsext] RE: On adoption of two drafts ...

> Note, also, that I'm sort of assuming we'll adopt the

+1

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:46:35 -0700

On 6/9/2010 7:35 AM, Avri Doria wrote:
> I have often tried to explain to people that the relationship between
> labels and words is a happy coincidence and they should not count on
> it.
> 

In case anyone isn't convinced yet, find me an English language word
that is NOT already registered in COM (minus words that require
non-allowed punctuation of course). The fact that it's even necessary to
have this discussion is one of those "ivory tower" issues that people
refer to when they talk about the IETF being out of touch with reality.

Doug

-- 

	... and that's just a little bit of history repeating.
			-- Propellerheads

	Improve the effectiveness of your Internet presence with
	a domain name makeover!    http://SupersetSolutions.com/

---

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:14:28 -0400

> schedule, is a good idea.

I have lurked for a long while and pretty much not participated in the group.

I have noticed that saying that one supports work items being chartered means they would participate in the work.  I would participate in the work, at least to the extent of  working on the problem statement and being an active reviewer, involved with:

>  While the DNS offers two mechanisms for aliasing DNS labels -- CNAME
> and DNAME -- neither of these provides the support necessary to alias
> completely one part of the DNS tree as another part.  There are claims
> that the restriction has proven to be too great in practice,
> particularly with burgeoning deployment of IDNA and the need to
> provide domain name variants.  The issue is made more complex by
> DNSSEC
> 
> The DNSEXT WG will evaluate ways to provide such aliasing, to add
> metadata to zones to allow easier operation of zones when such
> aliasing is needed, or both.  The WG will also provide an
> informational document outlining the various strategies available,
> what they might be used for, and what their limitations are.  It is
> possible that the WG will conclude no aliasing or metadata support is
> possible, or that none of the proposals so far made are adequate.

I do not expect to attend the next IETF meeting but will try to participate remotely if I can.

a.

---

From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:58:55 -0400

On 2010-06-11, at 01:46, Doug Barton wrote:

> that is NOT already registered in COM

[sharkbait:~]% while read word; do test -z "$(dig +norec ${word}.com. soa | grep NXDOMAIN)" || echo "${word}.com"; done </usr/share/dict/words
abshenry.com
[sharkbait:~]% 

I don't know what abshenry means, for the record. :-)

Joe

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:51:48 -0700

On 06/11/10 11:58, Joe Abley wrote:
> [sharkbait:~]% while read word; do test -z "$(dig +norec ${word}.com. soa | grep NXDOMAIN)" || echo "${word}.com"; done</usr/share/dict/words
> abshenry.com
> [sharkbait:~]%
>

It seems to be a typo for abhenry, which is registered in COM:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abshenry

--

---

From: Niall O'Reilly <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:50:13 +0100

Alfred,

	I appreciate your careful observations, and feel they
	deserve a response.  I'm not sure I'm the best person
	to do that, but as no-one else has just yet, here goes.

	[In context]

> ratholes ever seen in DNS internationalization.

	Hopefully not.

> _identifiers_ in a more user friendly alphabet than IP addresses?

	Yes.

> Arabic languages (and scripts) that it had been reported to the
> IETF community that "The hardest part in this work was to escape
> from the (mis)concept of a couple of stakeholders that DNS labels
> were 'words' in one of the Arabic languages and therefore linguistic
> If application of a linguistic rule for Greek is the sole background
> of your requirement, aren't we in a similar position again?
>
> I do not support work on DNS protocol changes based on such
> specific (and arguably inappropriate) reasoning.  If we shall
> undertake such effort, a "neutral" problem statement needs to be
> formulated and taken as the _only_ base for the subsequent work.

	Yes, but ...

	I expect that such a neutral problem statement will have
	to allow registries to offer clusters or bundles of labels
	which meet the anticipated or actual demand of the marketplace
	in which each registry operates.  This demand will inevitably
	be shaped by the cultural (including linguistic) background
	of the target registrant community.

	As I see it, how a registry addresses the cultural parameters
	of its market is a matter to be dealt with in the respective
	naming policy (Charte de Nommage, comme le disent les gens de
	l'AFNIC), and must remain out of scope here.  On the other
	hand, I would expect an appropriate neutral problem statement
	to take account of the size of any cluster or bundle which is
	likely to arise in the field.

> IMO, for any purpose to be discussed here, the definition of DNS
> labels from the basic DNS standards should be taken for given,
> and this WG should refrain from imposing semantic rules of any kind
> on DNS labels.

	I think I agree.

> In other words: DNS Protocol mechanisms should work
> with any semantics imposed in a uniform manner by other bodies on
> *all* DNS labels.  Scoped semantics of specific classes of DNS labels
> MUST remain out of scope of the discussion in this WG.

	I'm not sure that this is indeed the same thing "in other
	words", as you suggest.  Perhaps I've misunderstood the scope
	of that "*all*".  It seem to me that support for (a term which
	I prefer to "imposition of") particular semantics will vary
	between registries, not least because of different demand from
	their respective markets.  For example, I don't imagine that
	Han-based IDN is a high priority for the .GR ccTLD.  In other
	words, as I see it, local semantics may apply, but will be
	a local, operational matter, and not a protocol matter.

	Is that what you meant?

	IMO, the only export from the cultural/semantic context of a
	particular registry's naming policy to this WG's attempt
	to make sense of bundles or clusters of domain names should
	be the issue of scale, which is likely to show up as both
	"label multiplicity" and "fanout".

> If we agree on a generally desirable scheme/model of "equivalence"
> of domain _names_ (any restriction to equivalence of single _labels_
> within a zone IMO is not worth such effort),

	IMO also.

> it may happen that
> someone can apply the ensuing protocol extensions for purposes not
> amenable to consensus in the IETF; they may deploy such usage,
> but that MUST NOT become topic of discussion in this WG, if we
> actually want to arrive at success *within any finite time span*.

	Absolutely.

> A few general thoughts:
>
> The examples shown so far seem to indicate that any generally
> useful equivalence scheme needs to admit composition and iteration.
> I.e., it must be possible to store an equivalence for a single label
> that somehow automagically applies to all compositions containing
> the domain name which an instance of the equivalence mechanism is
> regarded to have as its owner, and such equivalences can happen
> to be 'crossed' multiple times in the resolution process of a multi-
> label DNS name.

	+1

> The variety, complexity, and context-specifity of equivalence 'nets'
> envisioned makes it clear that neither end system resolvers nor
> caches should be burdened with extraneous storing and/or processing
> requirements for equivalences.  Equivalences mentioned so far
> apparently are neither generic nor symmetrical.
> This IMO implies that these 'equivalences' are not equivalence
> relations in a mathematical (set theoretical) sense;

	I think this is arguable, but
	that probably doesn't matter right now.

> each instance
> of an 'equivalence class' instead needs to be represented by a
> simply-connected, loop-free, directed graph with a 'canonical' name
> form (chosen by the entity defining the instance of equivalence)
> at its (inverted) root.

	Makes sense to me.

> Each byte of information on any instance of equivalence must be located
> in the respective authoritative zones, and the nodes and arcs of that
> graph must be represented "in the DNS way", to allow transporting the
> information from the authorities to the resolvers in the standard way
> that admits "vouching" for these components of the graph by normal
> DNSSEC.  In this model, the nodes in the equivalence graphs are
> represented by DNS nodes, and a directed arc ("arrow") in an
> equivalence graph is represented by an RR at the 'source' of the arc,
> pointing to the 'target' of the arc.
> (This is the model already present in CNAME and DNAME -- set aside
> synthetic CNAME generation for DNAME.)

	We may need to make a distinction between "node data" and
	"DNS metadata" in interpreting the phrase, "Each byte of
	information".

>    Alfred.

	The same.
	Niall