Re: Problems of Internationalized Mail Address eXtensions (IMAX)

----- Original Message -----
From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: Problems of Internationalized Mail Address eXtensions (IMAX)
>
> Jeffrey J Zahari writes:
> > anyone could have already set up a working DNS/mail
> > infrastructure using bind 9 and qmail using UTF-8
>
> Here you're talking about a massive change to the Internet as if it were
> some trivial overnight task.
>

I am not advocating that everyone should go down this path, just merely
pointing out that efforts have been made to allow 8 bit on the Internet.

> > However, IDNA was chosen
>
> Here you're talking about even more massive change to the Internet as if
> it were already done.
>

IDNA was chosen, yes, by the idn wg.

> > better compression comparitive to UTF-8
>
> Here you're wildly exaggerating the importance of a ludicrously small
> issue.
>

There have been no relaxations to the domain label length restrictions, or
recommendations to cater for variable width encodings, so these limits would
need due consideration.

> > all legacy implementations would not have to be upgraded
>
> Here you're making the content-free observation that we don't have to
> do anything if we don't want to accomplish anything.
>

Existing DNS implementations would not need any upgrades. The tools used to
manipulate the zone files on the other hand, would need helper applications,
or punycode support to do the necessary conversions. Protocols requiring the
use of domain names as their protocol elements would likewise need some
reworking to cater to the impact of ACE idns. However, one could argue the
scope of DNS per se does not need to cover this.

> Are you an implementor? Do you speak any languages other than English?
> What are your goals here?
>

Yes, i speak mandarin, a smattering of dialects from guangdong, fujian and
malay, a language which originally had no written form, but has adopted
us-ascii ( no i18n problems there ), and I presume all our goals are to
present balanced opinions on solutions at hand?

> ---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
> Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
>

jeffrey j zahari