Changing the xn-- prefix

Vint Cerf vint at google.com
Thu Mar 20 14:55:47 CET 2008


i would support option 1 as formulated below although I sincerely  
hope that the documents as they stand support a conclusion that the  
prefix need not be altered.

On Mar 20, 2008, at 9:17 AM, Simon Josefsson wrote:

> Paul Hoffman <phoffman at imc.org> writes:
>
>> Given that this is a charter issue, not a post-charter issue, it  
>> would
>> be good to get some closure here. Is anyone supporting changing the
>> xn-- prefix other than Simon?
>
> I never said that I support changing the xn-- prefix.  I believe it
> would be quite unfortunate if we change the prefix.
>
> However, I believe that ruling out changing the prefix in the WG  
> charter
> is premature.  How high the costs of changing the prefix will be  
> depends
> on the costs of changing other things in IDNA in backwards  
> incompatible
> ways, such as the encoding of ß.
>
> Since the WG is empowered to make backwards incompatible changes, I
> believe the WG should be equally empowered to consider whether  
> changing
> the prefix yield lower overall deployment costs.
>
> I believe that the WG charter should say that the WG is:
>
>   1) able to consider any backwards incompatible change, including  
> the ß
>   character and changing the prefix.
>
>   2) not able to consider backwards incompatible changes at all, i.e.,
>   that every string valid under IDNA2003 should remain valid and  
> encode
>   to the same value.
>
> Considering that we are still discussing which changes is a good  
> idea or
> not, I think option 1) gives the WG better instruments to produce a
> technically optimal solution given all constraints.
>
> /Simon
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