Subject: Re: [idn] WG last call summary

From: Paul Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 04:54:15 -0800

On Mar 18, "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> More importantly, in the absence of consensus, the status quo wins.
> Something is seriously wrong when an internationalization proposal draws
> objections from hundreds of Chinese-speaking users, for example.

Now *that's* a convincing argument. However, the status quo in this case is
broken. OK, let me rephrase - it's broken for people in China who don't
understand the latin alphabet or who want their e-mail addresses outside of
USASCII 0-127. Something *should* be done, but your argument has a hint of
'I never want anything done, ever' about it, which is putting people off.

My current understanding is that the majority of debate appears to be about
interoperability with legacy applications - to me, it sounds a little like
the brain-dead 'we can't roll out IPv6 as it breaks IPv4' argument. In other
words, the code re-write and upgrde is going to have to happen sometime. You
just appear to want to put it off whilst we all sit around and procrastinate
for a while. History has shown this is not a Good Plan. However, the more I
start to re-read docs and think about it, the more I am convincing myself
that you may be right.

--
Paul Robinson

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Mar 2002 00:29:29 -0000

Paul Robinson writes:
> Something *should* be done, but your argument has a hint of

I have put a huge amount of effort into evaluating the costs of various
IDN proposals. Please read http://cr.yp.to/proto/idnc3.html before you
make any more comments about what I'm trying to do.

I have been trying to fix obsolete 7-bit IETF specifications for years.
I have been advocating for a year that the IDN WG _immediately_ declare
7-bit software to be obsolete. See the DRUMS archives for more examples.

I have a detailed web page, http://pi.cr.yp.to, tracking 8-bit bugs in a
variety of programs. I've spent quite a bit of time talking to other
implementors about this. It has been more than three years since I
suggested an easy Sendmail fix to Eric Allman.

You may be aware that I'm the author of the mail software with the
Internet's largest increase in SMTP-server deployment over the past 18
months (reaching #2 in total deployment, behind only Sendmail), and the
DNS software with the Internet's largest increase in domain-name
deployment over the past 18 months (reaching #2 in total deployment,
behind only BIND). My programs relay 8-bit data without trouble, even
though certain people obviously don't understand why this is important.

I want internationalized domain names (and mailbox names and so on) to
work. But I can't support the IDNA proposal; IDNA is a disaster. I also
can't accept having _any_ protocol move forward over so many objections.
Even the strongest desire to _do something_ is less important than the
requirement to obtain consensus for any change.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 20:44:15 -0600

>make any more comments about what I'm trying to do.

The link goes to a really delightful document.  It's best line is:

         "In contrast, IDNC3 does not allow IDN registration until all 
relevant software has been upgraded and tested."

All relevant software?

That means all modules that might provide or receive this new type of string.

I believe the current count of such modules is perhaps 100 million.

That means the scheme cannot be used until all 100 million modules are changed.

Nevermind that they will never all be upgraded.  By the time they are, 
there will be another 100 million to upgrade.

So to the extent that one might wonder whether Dan is entirely ignoring the 
pragmatic issues in transitioning a large installed base, we now have 
explicit text that makes clear the answer is yes.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Mar 2002 03:56:53 -0000

> I believe the current count of such modules is perhaps 100 million.

If you're frightened of the upgrade in http://cr.yp.to/proto/idnc3.html,
you should be terrified of the much larger upgrade in IDNA---even if we
don't count the IDNA-USERNAME upgrade, the IDNA-to-UTF-8 upgrade, etc.

Of course, you're also ignoring the fact that most of the IDNC3 work is
being done anyway. Many modules already work with UTF-8, and new UTF-8
support is appearing all the time.

> By the time they are, there will be another 100 million to upgrade.

Wrong. IDNC3, just like RFC 2277, requires UTF-8 support in everything.
The bulk of the work is fixing old stuff, not new stuff.