IANA actions and tables document

John C Klensin klensin at jck.com
Thu Dec 11 01:33:18 CET 2008



--On Wednesday, 10 December, 2008 12:29 -0800 Kenneth Whistler
<kenw at sybase.com> wrote:

> Patrik said:
> 
>> 
>> Here is a proposal of what to do.
>> 
>> 1) IANA is to keep registries of the following sections of
>> the tables   document:
>... 
>> 1.2) 2.7.  BackwardCompatible (G)
>...
>> 2) Changes
>> 
>> 2.1) Changes to 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 above require IETF action
> 
> I disagree. Changes to 1.1 and 1.3 should require IETF action,
> but as Mark tried to explain, if you don't make 1.2 part
> of the automatic process, all that happens is that you end
> up potentially introducing *instability* into IDN's between
> Unicode versions. That is the opposite of what the intent of
> Section 2.7 is for.

Ken,

I'm confused.  As I've understood it, category G (1.2 above) was
included to deal specifically with the (we hope extremely rare)
case in which changes were made to Unicode (and/or its various
annexes and reports) that required some special action to
preserve IDNA compatibility.   One can imagine changes that
would upset IDNA compatibility but not more general Unicode
compatibility (for example, I think we are dependent on some
properties that are not guaranteed to be stable).  

That inherently requires a judgment call on someone's part --
the IETF, UTC, or someone else-- which means it cannot be
automatic.

What am I missing?

    john



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