I would not have even thought of this interpretation. I'm used to having stability be a requirement; with this formulation, IDNAs that are accepted by products and protocols currently may become invalid in the future. Why on earth is such instability seen as a good thing?
<br><br>Mark<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 6/13/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Harald Tveit Alvestrand</b> <<a href="mailto:harald@alvestrand.no">harald@alvestrand.no</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
The intent of "MAYBE YES" and "MAYBE NO" was:<br><br>- ALWAYS: We guarantee that these codepoints will be permitted in IDNs (at<br>this level of the standard).<br>- NEVER: We guarantee that these codepoints will never be permitted in IDNs
<br>- MAYBE YES: At this stage of the development process, the rules that we<br>are using will make these characters permitted. However, we are not able to<br>give any guarantees.<br>- MAYBE NO: At this stage in the development process, the rules that we are
<br>using will make these characters not permitted. However, we are not able to<br>give any guarantees.<br><br>A reasonable behaviour for a reasonable registry would be:<br><br>- Permit ALWAYS in registrations (subject to other rules)
<br>- Do not permit NEVER in registrations<br>- If already permitting MAYBE YES characters, go on permitting them, on the<br>assumption that they will still work. Don't add more permitted ones unless<br>there's an operational need to (careful introduction).
<br>- If permitting MAYBE NO characters, either stop permitting them, or go<br>lobby the rulewriters to change the rules.<br><br>A reasonable behaviour for a reasonable software implementor of software<br>that won't be upgraded in 5 years would be:
<br><br>- Give a syntax error for attempts to type in IDNs with NEVER characters<br>- Permit all others (you can't be sure where they will end up)<br><br>OTOH, an online web-app provider might choose to regard all of MAYBE NOT as
<br>a syntax error, and bet on his ability to upgrade the software in the case<br>where a MAYBE NOT character migrates to MAYBE YES or ALWAYS.<br><br>Those examples could go into this doc, but I think they'd fit better in
<br>-framework, actually....<br><br><br><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Mark