Wikidna team final report

Dominique Lacroix domi.lacroix at gmail.com
Tue Sep 22 13:06:18 CEST 2009


  Gervase Markham <gerv at mozilla.org> wrote:

> since they
> started using the DNS and the Internet, which could have been up to
> around 25 years ago.

After thinking, are you sure, dear Gervase, that such an argument (25  
years of use) is an effective one to demonstrate that a choice is the  
right one?
It could be 25 years of wrong use by users who have not any other  
choice...
In French, we say: "fait accompli". I'm sure you understand it.
And in Latin: "Errare humanum, perseverare diabolicum."

> Your fundamental misunderstanding is to not realise that DNS names are
> aides memoire, not words in a particular language, no matter how much
> they may resemble the latter.

The double nature of DNS is indeed a great source of issues.
IMHO, actually, domain names are *labels* (in French "étiquettes").
And as digital labels, they are both: computing signs and linguistic  
signs.

For the major part of users, reading a domain name when surfing deals  
mostly with language rules.

As that double nature system is an original one, I believe the  
designers of the system are probably free to take in account more or  
less rules of each kind.
If IETF wished to better take in account the linguistic aspects of  
domains names it could be possible, don't you think?
But perhaps the price could be more complicate computing rules?

I wonder if this list  is the best place for such a debate. Is there a  
better one?


Best regards,

@+, Dominique Lacroix

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