[DNSOP] Re: Language negotiation in draft-ietf-dnsop-structu red-dns-error

+1

Text that is shown to end users is "content".  DNS is a platform for
distributing technical metadata, not content for users.

--Ben Schwartz

On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 6:41 AM Martin Thomson <[email protected]> wrote:

> >
> Please don't.
>
> I've reviewed the discussion of this and I can't work out who would use
> this capability.
>
> It is sufficient to include a language tag alongside the freeform text
> content.  A DNS server operator can - at their discretion - provide
> freeform diagnostic information for someone on the other end.  That's
> useful.
>
> I will observe that other protocols that offer freeform text fields for
> diagnostic messages don't bother with the language tag.  That's OK because
> this text will never be put in front of an end user.  So the language tag
> is above and beyond.
>
> We now have translation services if the language chosen by the server
> operator turns out to be something the recipient isn't natively able to
> handle.  Those services are very cheap and very good.  But there's also a
> good chance they won't be needed: either because no one bothers to read the
> text being produced (see Lars' message) or because they understand the
> language that is used.
>
> As Mark pointed out, HTTP and HTML have a bunch of adaptations for
> language negotiation.  Those aren't pretty, but they are well-used and
> proven.  If this were intended to be put in front of a human, those would
> have a far better chance of successfully delivered language-appropriate
> content.  Building a parallel negotiation process in the DNS protocol is
> most likely to turn into protocol baggage.  Baggage that will prevent the
> payload of the query option from being used for something else in future.
>
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