Re: Tilde

tedd wrote:
> What you refer to as "scripts" are blocks as described by the divisions 
> shown at the above link (i.e., Basic Latin, Latin-1, and so on...) AND 
> which are selected and approved by Versign. The only difference, is that 
> within any "approved" specific block, there may be additional code 
> points that will not be permitted -- is that what scripts are?

Yes, this is my understanding. Of course, for some scripts, there are
additional issues, like character equivalences for CJK. See the Verisign
character equivalence discussions for details.

> Also, I find it interesting to note that most of the code points found 
> in the "Mathematical Operators" block are universal with respect to 
> language (Math is universal). As such, considering that Versign has not 
> listed these as a script, then am I to understand that these set of 
> universal language independent code points will not to be allowed in the 
> IDNS.

Certainly not. Verisign has no say of what is and what is not allowed
in an IDN. They control .com and .net, and set policies for these two
zones only.

If you meant to ask "these set of universal language independent code 
points will not to be allowed in the  IDNs in the .net and .com zones",
then yes, that was my understanding. However, Pat Kane, who works for
Verisign, has just claimed the contrary.

> That seems contrary to the purpose of defining an universal 
> standard, doesn't it?

Not at all. The universal standard defines a protocol, and that works
just fine. You type a Unicode domain name in your browser, and the
browser tries to resolve it. If the domain has been registered, the
browser will resolve it. The browser does not need to know the policy
of the domain registrar for that - a name that does not follow the
policy will get converted to Punycode, and the DNS server will tell
that it is not registered. So there is perfect interoperability.

There are good reasons for registrars to implement such policies.
Otherwise, somebody could register "miсrosoft.com", where the
letter "c" is actually "CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ES" - and that
just happens to look similar to a latin "c" in most fonts.

Therefore, registrars need policies to prevent that from happening.
One such policy is "if one letter is cyrillic, they all have to be".
I don't actually know whether Verisign has a policy for valid
labels in the cyrillic script, but if there should be a policy,
the registrar is the place where to enforce it.

> Do you know if Versign is considering adding other "scripts", or has the 
> consideration process for additional scripts passed?

I guess the process of developing character tables for all the languages
is still underway. Beyond that, I have no idea - but Pat Kane can
probably comment in more detail.

Regards,
Martin