Fwd: IDNAbis spec

Mon Nov 2 19:37:30 CET 2009

I don't think this made it through the topical list moderator queue (thx
Paul)

Lisa

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Husni Al-Muhtaseb <muhtaseb at kfupm.edu.sa>
Date: 2009/10/30
Subject: IDNAbis spec
To: idna-update at alvestrand.no, ietf at ietf.org

 Dear Team members

I have been asked by Microsoft Arabia to review the internet draft entitled
“Internationalized Domain Names in Applications, Revised (IDNABIS)” from the
site http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/idnabis-charter.html. These drafts
include:

The Unicode code points and IDNA
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-07.txt>
Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Background,
Explanation, and Rationale
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-rationale-14.txt>
Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-protocol-17.txt>
Right-to-left scripts for IDNA
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi-06.txt>
Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Definitions and
Document Framework <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-defs-12.txt>
Mapping Characters in IDNA
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-mappings-05.txt>

I have found that there were tremendous efforts behind the work that will
lead soon to the use of Domain names in different languages.

I have gone through all available documents in the site. I needed also to
revisit previous versions of the Internet-Drafts. However, as my
specialization is in Arabic Computing, I have concentrated my study on the
document “Right-to-left scripts for IDNA
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi-06.txt>“.

I have reviewed the disallowed code points of Arabic which are listed below.
A nice thing I have noticed that most of characters that may cause
misleading or confusion have been disallowed as it is stated in The Unicode
code points and IDNA
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-07.txt>.

06DD..06DE

 ARABIC END OF AYAH..ARABIC START OF RUB EL H

FE76..FEFC

 ARABIC FATHA ISOLATED FORM..ARABIC LIGATURE

FE70..FE72

 ARABIC FATHATAN ISOLATED FORM..ARABIC DAMMAT

06D4

 ARABIC FULL STOP

FE74

 ARABIC KASRATAN ISOLATED FORM

0675..0678

 ARABIC LETTER HIGH HAMZA ALEF..ARABIC LETTER

FBD3..FD3F

 ARABIC LETTER NG ISOLATED FORM..ORNATE RIGHT

FD92..FDC7

 ARABIC LIGATURE MEEM WITH JEEM WITH KHAH INI

FD50..FD8F

 ARABIC LIGATURE TEH WITH JEEM WITH MEEM INIT

0600..0603

 ARABIC NUMBER SIGN..ARABIC SIGN SAFHA

066A..066D

 ARABIC PERCENT SIGN..ARABIC FIVE POINTED STA

06E9

 ARABIC PLACE OF SAJDAH

061B

 ARABIC SEMICOLON

0640

 ARABIC TATWEEL

061E..061F

 ARABIC TRIPLE DOT PUNCTUATION MARK..ARABIC Q

0606..060F

 ARABIC-INDIC CUBE ROOT..ARABIC SIGN MISRA

The new algorithmic model used in IDNA2008 allows the label when the
final character in a right to left string requires a combining mark in
order to be correctly represented. It allows diacritics to be included
as they are of type NSM (None spacing Marks). It seems this is
important in some right to left languages such as Yiddish and Dhivehi.
However, allowing Arabic diacritics marks (064b – 065E), which are
parts of the non spacing marks, in domain names will be problematic in
the future and might cause a lot of confusion in domain names. The
question could be simplified as to do want a label in a domain name
such as وردة to be different from a label such as وَردة? The question
in different words that if we allow diacritics on the domain name then
a domain name like

مايكروسوفت.شركة

Will be different than the

مَايكروسوفت.شركة

Because in the second one there is a diacritic on the first letter.

Although this diacritic is implicit in the first one.

So this might cause a lot of problems in the domain names registration
and owner claims.

Moreover, for the displaying order of the labels of a domain name I
have tried the following hypothetical domain names:

Husni.حاسب.شركة

حسني.حاسب.شركة

husni.حاسب.com

حسني.computer.شركة

حسني.حاسب.com

husni.computer.شركة

husni.computer.com

 The following is an image of the network order from right to left
for Arabic of the above:

It is clear that when we use two consecutive RTL labels separated by
dots and followed by one LTR label the display order does not look as
it should. The same is true that when we use two consecutive LTR
labels separated by dots and followed by one RTL. The question is
should we allow such confusion?

As I have introduced earlier, it an excellent effort towards the
internationalization of domain names.

Thank you and best wishes

 Husni Al-Muhtaseb

http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/ics/muhtaseb/

*From:* Mamdouh Najjar [mailto:mamdouhn at microsoft.com]
*Sent:* Tuesday, October 20, 2009 9:08 AM
*To:* muhtaseb at kfupm.edu.sa
*Cc:* Nasser Kettani
*Subject:* RE: IDNAbis spec

Salam Husni

I hope you are well and greetings for the new school year.  Have you had the
chance to look at the content?  Any feed back?

Best regards,

Mamdouh

*From:* muhtaseb at kfupm.edu.sa [mailto:muhtaseb at kfupm.edu.sa]
*Sent:* Thursday, September 24, 2009 6:32 PM
*To:* Mamdouh Najjar
*Cc:* Nasser Kettani; Khaled Al-Dhaher
*Subject:* RE: IDNAbis spec

Dear Dr. Mamdouh

Assalamu Alaikum and Eid Mubarak

Thank you for your trust. I’ll look at the contents of the link and I’ll
come back to you soon.

Thank you

Regards

Husni

*From:* Mamdouh Najjar [mailto:mamdouhn at microsoft.com]
*Sent:* Wednesday, September 23, 2009 5:40 PM
*To:* muhtaseb at kfupm.edu.sa
*Cc:* Nasser Kettani; Khaled Al-Dhaher
*Subject:* IDNAbis spec

Salam Husni

Eid Mubarak

Thank you for your time today to discuss the IDN Arabic specs and your
readiness to work with us on this important issue.  I’m attaching the link
for your review please.

The active drafts, WG mail reflector, charter and other information are
located here  http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/idnabis-charter.html

I would like you also to meet Nasser Kettani who is the Regional Standard
Officer (RSO) and who will work with you on this activity.  Please let me
know if you need any support.

Kind regards,

Mamdouh

+966 559 559 980

[image: cid:image001.png at 01C7FAA3.83DFE450]*[image: TESTing PNG]*

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