Consensus Call Tranche 7 (BiDi Model)

[Harald Alvestrand]

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>
> I note, also, that the consensus call did not discuss the current
> protocol restriction on registration, which is this:
>
>    Additional special tests for right-to-left strings are applied (See
>    [IDNA2008-BIDI].  Strings that contain right to left characters that
>    do not conform to the rule(s) identified there MUST NOT be inserted
>    as labels in zone files.
>
> I remain pretty uncomfortable with any part of this specification
> making new requirements on what may be put into DNS zone data.  I
> predict that the above restriction is going to be rejected out of hand
> by some registry operators.  If you really want this paragraph to
> stand, you will for sure be updating the DNS specifications and the
> document will run the risk of getting handed to dnsext for review of
> this provision.  Is this provision really necessary?
how else can we formulate "don't do this"?

I'm happy with saying "Registries that want to claim conformance to 
IDNA2008 MUST NOT place labels containing strings with right-to-left 
characters that fail the BIDI criterion in zonefiles they're responsible 
for" - I don't want to update the DNS specification, I want to make it 
clear what people following the IDNA2008 specification have to do.

But I want to think that this is implicit in "conformance to IETF 
protocols is voluntary" and "IDNA2008 is a different specification from 
the DNS". Otherwise, modularization suffers.

                Harald