Final Sigma (was: RE: Esszett, Final Sigma, ZWJ and ZWNJ)

[Erik van der Poel]

Or perhaps even a small file that contains the hint, and that can be
cached, similar to favicon.ico. I.e. instead of:

http://xo--qxan.gr/favicon.ico

we might have:

http://xo--qxan.gr/idndisplay.txt

OK, now I will stop.

Erik

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Erik van der Poel <erikv at google.com> wrote:
> Just an afterthought, but if it really is impossible to add a new
> field to DNS, one might imagine a new HTTP response header that
> contains the hint. Of course, one would have to come up with other
> ideas for protocols other than HTTP, but I hope you get the gist.
>
> Erik
> - Show quoted text -
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Erik van der Poel <erikv at google.com> wrote:
>> Hi John,
>>
>> The idea was not a fully fleshed out proposal, as I'm sure most people
>> are aware. I have no idea whether we can add any more "fields" (for
>> lack of a better term) to the relevant part of the DNS, but I was
>> simply imagining that one could add a new, optional field that would
>> only serve as a hint to the software that is attempting to decode the
>> Punycode and display the resulting Unicode on some device. In the
>> absence of the hint, the software would simply display the Unicode as
>> is, i.e. in the case of Greek, probably lower-case characters without
>> tonos, and normal, lower-case sigma instead of final sigma. If the
>> software was able to retrieve the hint for a particular label (if not
>> FQDN), the hint would indicate which characters should have a tonos,
>> and which sigmas should be final.
>>
>> I certainly do not want to give anybody the impression that fields can
>> be added to DNS willy-nilly. Such endeavors must be carefully
>> considered, preferably by DNS experts. :-)
>>
>> You're probably right that one of the original goals of IDNA was to
>> avoid "changes" to DNS itself, but given that one can retrieve e.g. A
>> for IPv4 and AAAA for IPv6, I don't consider it so outrageous to store
>> yet another piece of info about a label (or FQDN) in the DNS.
>>
>> If people outside Greece want to use Greek characters but don't mind
>> the way IDNA2003 maps sigmas (and doesn't map characters with tonos),
>> then they could of course just use IDNA2003 with xn--. One of the
>> difficulties with this idea is to come up with a clean way for an
>> implementation to decide which mapping spec and prefix to use (xn-- vs
>> xo--) when the user is typing the label on the keyboard (given that
>> labels inside e.g. HTML files would always be processed the IDNA2003
>> way). One very simple and probably silly idea is: if the label is
>> being typed on the keyboard, and if the TLD is .com, then use IDNA2003
>> with xn--. If the TLD is .gr, then use the new Greek mapping spec with
>> xo--.
>>
>> Does this explain my thinking a bit better? Again, I don't really want
>> to go down this path because of the difficulties of multiple prefixes.
>>
>> I apologize for sending out half-baked ideas. I was only wondering
>> what we might be able to do for the Greeks, other than DNAME or a new
>> *NAME that actually solves their problem neatly.
>>
>> Erik
>> - Show quoted text -
> - Show quoted text -
>> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 7:45 PM, John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> --On Wednesday, February 25, 2009 09:48 -0800 Erik van der Poel
>>> <erikv at google.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>...
>>>> Then there could be an extra field in the DNS that indicates
>>>> how to display those names in Unicode form. I.e. it would tell
>>>> you which sigmas are supposed to be final, which characters
>>>> should have a tonos, and so on.
>>>>...
>>>
>>> Erik,
>>>
>>> Could you please explain "extra field in the DNS" to those of us
>>> who are under the impression that
>>>
>>>        * that there are no places to put extra fields in any RR
>>>        type in CLASS IN
>>>
>>>        and/or
>>>
>>>        * that the primary premise of IDNA is to avoid making
>>>        any changes to the DNS.
>>>
>>> ... just trying to understand what you are proposing.
>>>
>>> I hope it is not to encourage Greece to do something that would
>>> not be interoperable with the rest of the Internet, including
>>> people outside Greece that are using Greek characters?  That
>>> would rather defeat one of the advantages of IDNs as well as
>>> having other bad consequences.
>>>
>>> best,
>>>     john
>>>
>>>
>>
>