Standardizing on IDNA 2003 in the URL Standard

John C Klensin klensin at jck.com
Thu Jan 30 15:57:12 CET 2014



--On Wednesday, January 29, 2014 17:39 -0800 Anne van Kesteren
<annevk at annevk.nl> wrote:

>...
> However, I think I have been convinced by this thread that UTS
> #46 might be good enough as replacement for IDNA2003. Once it
> has been clarified per the feedback I submitted I will
> incorporate it in the URL Standard. It's unfortunate that even
> #46 is implemented in different ways. :-(

This seems to me to be good progress; thanks.

The next task is probably to do what we discussed in August and
then didn't follow up on:

(1) Review and, as appropriate, incorporate your feedback

(2) Recast UTR46 where necessary as an IDNA2008-based document
with transition features _to_ it, rather than as an
IDNA2003-based one with transition or preservation features
_from_ it.

(3) It seems to me that that recasting includes making
recommendations about transition conditions, even if only to
more clearly state realistic considerations.  That, in turn,
requires avoiding conditions like "when most of the registries
have adopted recommended policies", if only because "most" is
impossible to measure.   It also requires recognizing that the
decision to change the handling of some previously-mapped-out
characters (both the joiner subset of the formerly
mapped-to-nothing group and some case-folding issues) was as
much a conscious decision of some major registries in
consultation with important language and writing system
communities as of the IETF.  As a result, that decision deserves
to be treated with more respect than proposed policies that
would prevent those decisions from ever being useful would imply.

best,
    john




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