Parsing the issues and finding a middle ground -- another attempt

Erik van der Poel erikv at google.com
Wed Mar 4 00:05:35 CET 2009


I am sympathetic with John's concern that implementations ought to be
able to perform local mappings for Turkish, and still claim compliance
with the protocol.

I am also sympathetic with John's concern that other protocols, such
as email, ought to be able to mandate U-labels or A-labels (without
mapping).

I think this basically means that IDNA2008 ought to be relatively
"loose", leaving stricter specifications to other specs and
recommendations.

As far as trying IDNA2008 before IDNA2003 is concerned, I think the
wording should allow, for each label, local and/or global mappings
before checking IDNA2008 rules and looking up the resulting label,
followed by local and/or global IDNA2003 mappings before checking
IDNA2003 rules and looking up that resulting label.

IDNA2003 and IDNA2008 rules should not be mixed within a single label,
but may be mixed within an FQDN? (Shudder.)

I can live with Eszett, Final Sigma, ZWJ and ZWNJ under xn--, but I'd
be happier if we heard some kind of confirmation or approval from the
German, Greek and Iranian registries, respectively.

Erik


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