Another Transition Plan Proposal
Cary Karp
ck at nic.museum
Fri Dec 11 00:05:48 CET 2009
> Not to be negative, but I am no longer certain what "bundle"
> means because it has been used in many different ways on this
> list. In a way, that is an advantage, because I think giving
> registries choices of which interpretation of "bundle" then
> intend to use is an advantage as long as the general objectives
> can be met.
>
> Cary and others may be able to calibrate this better, but my
> understanding from discussions with various ccTLD operators that
> sunrise procedures have been much more effective
I do not believe that many TLD registry operators will agree that the
registration of one element in a pair of labels such as "fuss" and
"fuß", or "möller" and "møller", should, or even can, be made
conditional on the registration of the other (bundling). The difference
between those two cases that is of such great concern here can obviously
only cause difficulty when the ß is actually being included in
registered names.
The only way to know if the holder of a name containing ss would have
preferred it to be an ß is by asking. Any registry that wishes to avoid
the potential snags that we're talking about will therefore need to poll
the holders of all ss names no matter what. When doing so they can
easily offer the holder of, say, fuss.tld privileged opportunity to
register fuß.tld before the ß is added to the generally available
repertoire (sunrise). The terms under which that is done (perhaps
offering some form of cost relief), or the action taken if the offer is
declined (perhaps reserving the ß name for the holder of the ss name
nonetheless, or "blocking" it entirely), or the decision even to support
the new codepoint, or the timetable on which any of this action is
conducted, is certain to vary from registry to registry. I don't see any
realistic way for us to impose a uniform business regimen on the entire
SLD space (much less the entire name space).
Beyond that introductory action, the issues attaching to the maintenance
of a single zone that contains names which differ only by the element of
the ß/ss pair they include, become no different than those associated
with ä/a/æ, ö/o/œ, ü/u/ue, é/e/è or any other of the many situations
where such clustering might be considered.
> Please also don't forget the fact that there are German and
> Greek registrations in various gTLDs. I don't know whether the
> same principles would usefully apply, but I think we need to at
> least consider the issue rather than assuming it is limited to
> ccTLD registries whose primary language of interest is Greek or
> German.
The gTLD registry constituency, which is both all-inclusive and bound by
ICANN's IDN guidelines, is preparing a joint statement about this. (We
don't need to hold our breath in anticipation of it including a request
for one-size-fits-all guidance in matters that the individual gTLD
registries have felt comfortably able to deal with all along.)
/Cary
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