RE: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in progress

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-international-request@w3.org [mailto:www-international-
> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 6:53 PM
> To: 'Daniel Dardailler'; 'Martin Duerst'
> Cc: 'Najib Tounsi'; 'WWW International'; 'W3C Offices'; public-i18n-
> core@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in progress
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: public-i18n-core-request@w3.org
> > [mailto:public-i18n-core-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Daniel
> > Dardailler
> > Sent: 23 October 2007 13:42
> ...
> > Not to mention that URLs are supposed to be opaque..
> 
> I'm not so sure of that.  I just purchased the rishida.net domain
> because I was sick and tired of trying to get people to type in
> http://people.w3.org/rishida/photos/ correctly over the phone - much
> less remember it when they get back to their computer.
> rishida.net/photos/ on the other hand is a cynch.
> 
> I'm constantly spelling out or writing out the URI of my home page for
> other people, and I'm glad I don't have to do it in some other
> language, never mind a different script like Greek or Cyrillic.
> 
> RI
> 


This is exactly the point, although with a different conclusion. I often read over the phone English URLs (I don't buy the neutral Latin script in this context) to people for whom English is not their language and who do not know it well, causing lots of problems. When we get internationalized URLs I would be reading them words in their own language.

Jony

> ============
> Richard Ishida
> Internationalization Lead
> W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
> 
> http://www.w3.org/International/
> http://rishida.net/blog/
> http://rishida.net/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > To: Martin Duerst
> > Cc: Najib Tounsi; 'WWW International'; W3C Offices;
> > public-i18n-core@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in progress
> >
> >
> > Hello Martin, all
> >
> > ICANN heard/hears very well the complaints of those who say
> > they are taking too much time to i18nize DNS, not to mention
> > localize it, so I'm not sure adding our own critics would
> > help. I've always been told that the tests were necessary and
> > long because of the paramount importance of the root
> > integrity, which I have a hard time pushing against
> > personnally since I pushed for more QA at W3C from day one
> > (at the price of speed, clearly) to ensure better testing of
> > our specs.
> >
> > The real issue today is the policy debate for creating new
> > TLDs by the dozen, and whether or not the system will scale
> > right away in the IDN space. Note that this debate alone in
> > gTLD space, without IDN complications, took that long to
> > actually start moving again. Another issue is the
> > translation/transposition of country code names for ccTLD,
> > which wasn't looking good - as far as a standard is concerned
> > - on the ISO side last year.
> >
> > People need to really understand that IDNs are not free-4-all
> > Unicode strings, and that DNS in its current state is not
> > designed with that in mind (search for John Klensin analysis
> > on that point). IMO, IDNs, like TLDs in general, are
> > identifiers akin vehicle license plates, with the same
> > cross-community border interop issues - and maybe the same
> > solution (e.g. ascii subset being used in a lot of regions).
> >
> > Speaking of reasons why URNs aren't opaque, I also wonder if
> > people have thought carefully of the print-digital interface
> > problem we're facing with IDNs becoming popular (I remember
> > talking with Richard about that) and no Unicode familiarity
> > in the masses (e.g. I know how to enter ??.?? in my computer
> > even though I don't have a greek keyboard, but my daughter
> > doesn't - OK my wife does too, but it's a special case :)
> >
> >
> > Do you by any chance know which consortia or ISO group is
> > currently or has worked on licence plate normalisation ? How
> > did they solve their I18N issues, and on which ground ?
> > Police Interop comes first ?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Martin Duerst wrote:
> > > Hello Daniel,
> > >
> > >  From my reading of Najib's mail, especially the "Yet
> > another breaking
> > > of open doors?", it seems that in Najib's opinion, the real
> > IDN issue
> > > with ICANN is that they drag their feet, now for years, in
> > introducing
> > > non-ASCII TLDs, and with the recent announcement, they just
> > have found
> > > a way to extend dragging their feet for another few months at
> least.
> > >
> > > I would have to fully and completely agree with the above opinion.
> > >
> > > I wonder what's the best way to tell this to ICANN, maybe
> > you can give
> > > us some advice?
> > >
> > > Regards,   Martin.
> > >
> > > At 01:54 07/10/23, Daniel Dardailler wrote:
> > >> Najib, and other with IDN experience, I encourage you to
> > send back your comments on IDN real issues to ICANN and the
> > IDN groups there.
> > >>
> > >> Najib Tounsi wrote:
> > >>> FYI. Good News
> > >>> Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) is
> > >>> speeding up their work to introduce Internationalized
> > Domain Names
> > >>> (IDNs). Icann has published a call for test on this issue. see
> > >>> http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-15oct07.htm
> > >>> The tests are targeted toward 'full' IDNs, i.e. with TLDs in
> > >>> non-Latin scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, Cyrilic, Greek and
> > >>> others. Among other things, the tests aim essentially to
> > >>> (1) "know how the URL displays in browsers" and
> > >>> (2) "How this impacts the root zone"
> > >>> I would like to add two comments:
> > >>> About the point (1), the W3C I18N WG have already carried
> > out a series of tests on how IDNs are displayed in browsers.
> > Results are discussed in:
> > >>> http://www.w3.org/International/tests/results/results-idn-IDNs
> > >>> and
> > >>>
> > http://www.w3.org/International/tests/results/results-rtl-idn-displa
> > >>> y
> > >>> (for IDNs with RTL scripts)
> > >>> About (2), technically there should be no problem, since IDNs are
> > >>> converted to punicode, an ASCII equivalent string, before
> > being sent
> > >>> to DNS. Moreover, ICANN have already done a similar test in
> > >>> http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-4-07mar07.htm
> > >>> to be sure "for prudence"  if in presence of TLDs
> > expressed in punicode, "DNS system as a  whole do not behave
> > differently from its normal behaviour."
> > >>> Yet another breaking of open doors?
> > >>> Any other comment?
> > >>> Best,
> > >>> Najib
> > >>>
> > >
> > >
> > > #-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
> > > #-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp
> > mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>

Received on Thursday, 25 October 2007 17:36:51 UTC