Mapping other Digits to 0-9

Andrew Sullivan ajs at shinkuro.com
Mon Dec 8 19:51:31 CET 2008


On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 10:38:47AM -0800, Mark Davis wrote:
> The original motivation for the mapping (in IDNA2003) was to make IDNs work
> like regular domain names, regarding case (and similar kinds of variants
> when extended to Unicode). It has nothing to do with "localization".

Yes.  But I was talking about the motivation in IDNA200x.

> I think the motivation for "local mapping" in IDNA2008 is two-fold. Some of
> us need to maintain compatibility with IDNA2003. Others want to have special
> mappings for Turkish. (Personally, I think the latter makes for a nasty
> security and interoperability problem). I haven't heard any case but Turkish
> cited as an example of why someone would want a "localization" mapping.

I seem to recall John emphasising the difference between localization
and internationalization during the plenary in [mumble], when the work
that was done prior to the working group's foundation was first being
presented to the IETF.  Of course, it's entirely possible (some of you
may be saying "quite likely", by now) that I misunderstood him.  But
it seemed to me that localization formed a central premise in his
argument that mappings had done harm, and that any mapping needed to
be pushed back out to the edges and away from the protocol.  I
wouldn't be astonished to learn I have this all wrong, however.  Maybe
John can correct me.

If the justification for moving mapping out of the protocol and into
some sort of local policy is as flimsy as I understand you to be
saying it is, why are we doing it?

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at shinkuro.com
Shinkuro, Inc.


More information about the Idna-update mailing list