FW: [centr-tech] IDNA Redux]

John C Klensin klensin at jck.com
Mon Nov 6 11:54:43 CET 2006



--On Monday, November 06, 2006 16:44 +1300 Sam Vilain 
<sam.vilain at catalyst.net.nz> wrote:

> Dave wrote:
>> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-faltstrom-idnabis-t
>> ables-00.txt
>>
>>  | Exclude  | U+02BB | U+02BB | Lm    | MODIFIER LETTER
>>  TURNED COMMA | | Exclude  | U+02BC | U+02BC | Lm    |
>>  MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE   |
>
> As ASCII isn't directly encodable using Punycode, one of these
> is going to be needed to be allowed for Pacific languages,
> which use the apostrophe. eg, Hawaiʻi. It is often ignored,
> but in languages like Tongan it can make a difference.

Sam,

We are quite aware of this.  The problem goes back to, and was 
recognized in, the original work on IDNA and earlier -- the 
character, in many typefaces, looks like the ASCII apostrophe / 
single quote.  That character is prohibited in DNS names for 
several reasons, not least of which involves parsing problems in 
many operating systems as well as the usual "confusable" 
problem.   Suggestions as to how to deal with it -- and avoid or 
minimize those problems -- would be welcome, but this is one of 
those cases in which "this is needed to write the language" is 
unfortunately not sufficient.  In practice, the principle needs 
to be closer to "any character needed to write the language but 
consistent with a stable and predictable DNS".

Just my opinion.
    john



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