Stop me if I've misunderstood...

[Paul Hoffman]

At 9:50 PM +0000 7/10/09, Shawn Steele wrote:
>What is your definition? 

I have none, that's why I am asking you. If I had one, it would have gone into the document.

>I fear I apparently have no clue what you're asking since you aren't happy with my answers :)

I'm asking for your definition of interoperability in this context. Who is doing the interoperating, and on was basis is it being determined.

>I consider the entire system to be wherever domain names are used.  That would be the a-Labels on the wire of a query, the APIs helping the client to resolve it.  The DNS server providing answers.  The server providing services which the URL named, the browser trying to visit a web site, the URL (misnomer), the protocol that contains the URL (http hrefs or whatever, mailto)  It includes a yellow sticky note and a bus if that's where the name appears.

OK, that's a definition we can work with.

>IF I restrict the system to merely DNS resolution, then it's much simpler.  I get labels, canonicalize them, convert them to punycode and make the query.  If I don't restrict it to that, then its "everything" where a name may appear.

Got it. And I think there is general agreement in the WG that we are not restricting IDNA2008 to simply the DNS resolution system; if we were, we could say "Punycode" and nothing else.

>I said "minimum disruption", not "no disruption."  Because the sets of expectations conflict, it is impossible to make a consistent system without some disruption.

You're going to hate me for this, but you now need to define "minimum". In IDNA2003, we had long, drawn-out debates about whether things like collapsing of Traditional and Simple Chinese in Unicode (and therefore in IDNA2003) was acceptable or it was beyond "minimal".

One person's definition of "minimum" is quite different than other.