<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>Le 22 sept. 09 à 12:00, Andrew Sullivan a écrit :</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:55:36 -0400<br>From: Andrew Sullivan <<a href="mailto:ajs@shinkuro.com">ajs@shinkuro.com</a>><br>Subject: Re: Wikidna team final report<br>To:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:idna-update@alvestrand.no">idna-update@alvestrand.no</a><br>Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:20090922135536.GB4450@shinkuro.com">20090922135536.GB4450@shinkuro.com</a>><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii<br><br>On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 01:06:18PM +0200, Dominique Lacroix wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">After thinking, are you sure, dear Gervase, that such an argument (25 <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">years of use) is an effective one to demonstrate that a choice is the <br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">right one?<br></blockquote><br>Depends on what you mean by "right". If by "right" you mean, "Does<br>not require retraining every user on the Internet to convince them<br>that they need to have a completely new idea about how Internet names<br>work," then I'd say yes, it is an effective argument. </span></blockquote><div><br></div>In the frame of a working group that IS changing how Internet names work, and in the context of new TLDs that probably will appear soon, this argument seems strange.</div><div>And overall, for 25 years, users ARE USED to perpetual changes in the Internet, and need to always learn and train.</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">If by "right" you mean, "Causes Internet naming to correspond to some<br>ideas I have about how spelling works in a particular environment,"<br>then of course it is not an effective argument. </span></blockquote><div><br></div>The idea I pointed out is not a personal view.</div><div>You seem to say: "Domains names are not names, domain names use words but they are not words."</div><div>Please allow me to feel a little doubt.</div><div><br></div><div>If you deal with words and languages, you cannot avoid linguistic considerations.</div><div>Great differences appear between computing rules and linguistic ones:</div><div>- Linguistics recognize the great role of users: linguistic researchers don't invent rules, they have to discover them in the users exchanges and in the languages life.</div><div>- Computing likes univalent signs (one label must mean precise IP address), linguistics recognize that languages are the kingdom of ambiguity and change.</div><div><br></div><div>A smart case in that field in Wikipedia's choice: <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_%28homonymie%29">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_%28homonymie%29</a></div><div>They could have said: "First-come, first-served". They could have sold words in auctions.</div><div>Instead, they integrated homonymy and homophony.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal; "></span></div><div>That's why their work goes better and better. And, with a distributed organization, they can pretend to a good level of universality.</div><div><b><br></b></div><div>Present DNS and Internet are remarkable US style realizations. I like and admire them.</div><div>But unless some changes, the more users they meet, the less universal they are.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">In any case, as I once read in a message from Scott Morris,<br>"Unfortunately reformatting the Internet is a little more painful than<br>reformatting your hard drive when it gets out of whack."<br><br><blockquote type="cite">In French, we say: "fait accompli". I'm sure you understand it.<br></blockquote><br><blockquote type="cite"></blockquote></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><blockquote type="cite"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">From my point of view, the problem seems to be that you and your</font><br></blockquote></span><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">colleagues do not.<br></span></blockquote><br></div><div>Nice answer. You made me smile. A point for you.</div><div><br></div><div>Funny. But not exact. Things will probably change, despite of that "fait accompli". And perhaps partly because of it.</div><div><br></div><div>"Your colleagues": I presume you speak about some other contributors of this list.</div><div>I never met any one of them (except 1, I crossed once during 5 minutes in a public meeting). We don't share neither the same job, nor the same employer, nor the same association, nor the same working group (except this one).</div><div>If you form your opinion in such fast and approximative ways, I understand you don't wish a real and loyal discussion.</div><div>So, with my regrets, we cannot discuss together about quality of argumentation.</div><div>Never mind.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Kind regards,</div><div><br></div><div>Dominique Lacroix</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br></body></html>