AW: Mapping?

Thu Dec 3 11:37:58 CET 2009

Just to clarify my (current) position...

If both ss and ß are PVALID, a I understand it, this means that Mr Weiß will
be able to register weiß.com where Mr Weiss may have already registered
weiss.com.  Because it will take end users some time to "catch up" with the
latest browsers, and indeed will take some time for IDNA2008 compatible
browsers to become available, a number of end users will be faced with the
prospect of typing in weiß.com and being directed to weiss.com.

This scenario is not acceptable under any circumstances - even if only one ß
had ever been used within a domain name.  Mr Weiß will not be happy with
IETF if his customers type his new domain name, perhaps an online
electronics store called Weiß and Son Ltd, which then for a proportion goes
to weiss.com who also have an online electronics store under the company
name Weiss and Son Ltd.

The end user is not a systems engineer and we have to remember that.  End
users are under the impression that domain names are unique and will resolve
to the correct server. We cannot have a situation in the interim where this
is sometimes not true.

My philosophy is always to go with backward compatibility if at all
possible.

If the above scenario could prove true ß must be mapped to ss.

However, if we can gain some sort of assurance that .de and .at will bundle
at the registry level any current weiß.com and weiss.com scenarios and
future registrations for a set time period (say 2-5 years), giving browser
developers time to implement the changes and end users time to upgrade their
systems, I would go for PVALID in order to facilitate the purported 1.8
million end users with surnames containing ß.

Thanks to Shawn for some excellent explanations.

Best regards

Debbie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no
> [mailto:idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Debbie Garside
> Sent: 03 December 2009 09:51
> To: 'Andrew Sullivan'; 'Georg Ochsner'
> Cc: 'Michael Everson'; 'IDNA update work'
> Subject: RE: AW: Mapping?
>
>  Andrew wrote:
>
> > The opponents of PVALID for these contentious characters
> are claiming
> > not that they're useless.  They're claiming that the change from
> > IDNA2003 is harmful. It's a serious charge, and we need to
> focus on it
> > (I've certainly failed to be consistent on that) because
> it's the core
> > dispute.
>
> I agree!
>
> Debbie
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no
> > [mailto:idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Andrew
> > Sullivan
> > Sent: 03 December 2009 00:29
> > To: Georg Ochsner
> > Cc: Michael Everson; IDNA update work
> > Subject: Re: AW: Mapping?
> >
> > Sorry about the top post.
> >
> > I don't even know why "Is this really important?" gets to be a
> > question, and to be fair to the mapping proponents I don't think
> > that's what their strongest argument is.
> >
> >   The very charter, and before that the BoF, establishing
> this WG was
> > clear that the point of the work was to move from a permission-list
> > model to a permissive model, where "permissive" meant "not
> obviously
> > harmful".
> >
> > The opponents of PVALID for these contentious characters
> are claiming
> > not that they're useless.  They're claiming that the change from
> > IDNA2003 is harmful. It's a serious charge, and we need to
> focus on it
> > (I've certainly failed to be consistent on that) because
> it's the core
> > dispute.
> >
> > A
> > --
> > Andrew Sullivan
> > <ajs at shinkuro.com>
> >
> > On 2009-12-02, at 18:42, "Georg Ochsner" <g.ochsner at revolistic.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello Michael,
> > >
> > > thank you for once more putting all this right! I am constantly
> > > shaking my head because people believe to know how little
> > the German
> > > users would need the _ and its distinction from ss. In my
> > opinion ID
> > > NA should try to enable as many letters (!) as possible
> > anyway, but if
> > > one is trying to assess the relevance of the _, then
> > shouldn't be  the
> > > actual usage of it the most relevant and objective factor?
> > >
> > > Please could someone provide numbers of the actual usage of
> > _, d, v,
> > > |, and the other 26 letters within German online texts (not links
> > > ) in Germany and Austria? Or query the Duden and have a
> look on how
> > > many German words can ONLY be spelled properly with _? Or
> > query a Ge
> > > rman Wikipedia dump and see how often the letters are used?
> > BTW as I
> > > wrote before 1,5 Mio. Germans have a surname with _, that's
> > more th an
> > > 1,8% of the population.
> > >
> > > Best regards
> > > Georg
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> -----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht-----
> > >> Von: idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:idna-update-
> > >> bounces at alvestrand.no] Im Auftrag von Michael Everson
> > >> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 2. Dezember 2009 21:52
> > >> An: IDNA update work
> > >> Betreff: Re: Mapping?
> > >>
> > >> I'll just say it again. _ is not ss. _ is not ?s either. ^
> > is not th.
> > >>
> > >> On the other hand, \ is |.
> > >>
> > >>> I'm not Patrik, but what I think is interesting is that _ is
> > >>> meaningless in Swedish.  For Swedish users, mapping _ to
> > ss may not
> > >>> make sense because ss isn't _.  Same in English, I can't
> > make a  fu_
> > >>> about something, I have to spell it fuss.
> > >>
> > >> Ha! You can spell it fu?s though in 18th-century orthography.
> > >>
> > >> But, um, please remember something.
> > >>
> > >> Swedish users are not monoglot Swedish speakers.
> > >>
> > >> American users are not monoglot English speakers.
> > >>
> > >> I'm allowed to be interested in fu_ball.ie if I want. Or in i_-
> > >> mich.com or imbi_.org or or for all I know
> _piek-inglisch.de. Am I
> > >> not?
> > >>
> > >>> On the other hand, _ is meaningless, so I don't see
> that it hurts
> > >>> English or Swedish to map it to ss.
> > >>
> > >> I don't accept that "_ is meaningless". Maybe to someone
> who has n
> > >> ever seen it, but in this day and age? And German is still
> > taught in
> > >> American schools, I am sure. That's where I learnt mine. German
> > >> certainly is taught in Irish ones.
> > >>
> > >>> Digressing:  _ is also very unique.  AFAIK it only has this one
> > >>> behavior because it was originally kinda like a ligature (some
> > >>> typography person's going to correct me :)
> > >>
> > >> Yes, I am. Its origin is a ligature, but the same can be
> > said of "w".
> > >> The letter "G" was once really "C" with a diacritic stroke.
> > >>
> > >>> So unless _ has been adopted by another language I don't think
> > >>> there's a language where the mapping is actually wrong.
> > (ou == o is
> > >>> actually wrong many places, as is dropping diacritics or
> > doing other
> > >>> diacritic mappings).  Eszett is unique.
> > >>
> > >> All right, everyone, get out your crystal balls....
> > >>
> > >> _ has been used historically in orthographies for Baltic
> and Germa
> > >> nic languages.
> > >>
> > >>> On the third hand, _ is also the "correct" spelling for
> > some words,
> > >>> so even though a Swiss user might expect something
> > different, and I
> > >>> don't see any harm in mapping it, it is clear that
> > fu_ball shoul d
> > >>> be spelled fu_ball in Germany and Austria.  IMO that
> > doesn't make it
> > >>> harmful that fu_ball and fussball end up at the same place.
> > >>
> > >> The harm in mapping it is that pass.ie is not pa_.ie
> > >>
> > >> As I said before, Eisstrasse may be Eisstra_e but it cannot be
> > >> Ei_trasse or Ei_tra_e. Here, ss ? _.
> > >>
> > >> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> Idna-update mailing list
> > >> Idna-update at alvestrand.no
> > >> http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/idna-update
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Idna-update mailing list
> > > Idna-update at alvestrand.no
> > > http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/idna-update
> > _______________________________________________
> > Idna-update mailing list
> > Idna-update at alvestrand.no
> > http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/idna-update
> >
>
>
>
>
>