UTC Response to "Letter to Unicode Technical Committee on IDNA2008"

Vint Cerf vint at google.com
Tue Dec 8 13:12:15 CET 2009


Dear Lisa,

Thank you and the UTC for its rapid response.

I believe that the discussions of the past week have confirmed a  
general consensus
on the preference that Final Sigma and Sharp-S be PVALID. We did not  
poll for
the joiner/non-joiner question because a consensus already existed, in  
my opinion,
as chair, for these to be contextually valid (CONTEXTJ).

The method of introduction of IDNA2008 is important to all of us, to  
promote its
utility. At the close of the day, I will review all of the comments  
received and attempt
to synthesize what I believe is a plan around which consensus can be  
obtained.

Vint Cerf



On Dec 7, 2009, at 11:46 PM, Lisa Moore wrote:

> Dear Vint,
>
> The UTC appreciates the difficulty for users of IDNs, the  
> registries,and
> all involved if lowercase sharp s (Latin Small Letter Sharp S (U 
> +00DF))
> and small final sigma (Greek Small Letter Final Sigma (U+03C2)), in
> particular, are mapped to other characters. As you know, our  
> concerns are
> compatibility and potential security issues. However, based on the  
> many
> ongoing dicussions and much thought, the UTC would not be opposed to  
> have
> lowercase sharp s, final sigma, and even joiner and non-joiner be  
> valid
> and not mapped, as long as there can be policies in place for a  
> transition
> period (of say 5 years) that will manage the expected compatibility
> issues.
>
> The key for us is having policies for a well-managed transition with
> sufficient time for browser and other application upgrades.  Without  
> such
> policies in place, we would favor continuing the IDNA2003 treatment  
> of the
> four above-mentioned characters.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Lisa Moore
> Chair, Unicode Technical Committee
>
>
> Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote on 11/28/2009 01:57:17 PM:
>
>>
>>
>> A prompt response would be much appreciated considering we have
>> delayed reporting the results of the IETF LAST CALL to the Internet
>> Engineering Steering Group while this matter is debated.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Vinton Cerf
>> Chairman, IDNABIS Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task  
>> Force



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