CircleID

I left my comments on my blog but let me make two quick note:

1. On DNAME, I wasnt a big fan of using DNAME. I think ICANN is misguided that the DNS infrastructure cannot support too many TLDs and that using DNAME adds a leve of complexity to the system than it needs to be.

A label is a label, does not matter if it is on the 2nd level or the top level. If we dont use DNAME on 2nd level, I dont see why we need to use DNAME on the top level.

But I wont stand in the way for ICANN to experiment with DNAME IDN TLDs. Any little step forward is a step forward.

2. The article didnt mention RFC 4690 : Review and Recommendations for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). It covers a great deal of the technical complexity of IDNs, what we know works and some of the potential technical pitfalls we are concerned with in the existing system.

I wrote to Patrik and John a few weeks ago and here is what I said:

I agreed with issues raised in the doc, many of them are already well-known before the original set of IDN RFCs was publish.

However, I think it would make sense for the system to implement a bit longer to see whether the problem mentioned is real or just a theortical possibility. It might also hurt the IDN progress if IETF undertakes a review at this moment in time, as more likely then not, implementors will then wait for the completion of the review before further implementation gets done.

Other the minor disagreement with the timing, I applaud the work done on RFC 4960 :-)

Patrik replied to say they have taken the timing into consideration so I left it as that.

My perspective is that whilst 95% of the Domain community are still saying that IDN will never work, we are avoiding implementing IDN using DNAME aliases for fear that the system might become overloaded. If that is a serious risk then it is a very strong argument indeed, not for delay but for proceeding. If that kind of level of demand is really there then it should be supported with whatever investment is needed to ensure that all users of the Internet are able to access it in the manner that they have manifestly chosen.

Continued delays inimplementing IDNs is damaging the online economies of Asia. This is not just "cultural imperialism", it is "economic sabotage". The suspicion has to be that it is not just an unfortunate outcome, but part of somebodies hidden agenda. The conflict of interest of the US Government having legal control of ICANN has clearly been instrumental in us arriving at this position. The question is has it been arrived at through neglect or deliberate endeavour?

Just an observation - and I certainly don't mean to impugn anyone's motives or abilities - but:

Why is it that the people that say putting the Net into different languages is too complex are always English speakers?

All non-English speakers I talk to about IDNs and so on are universally certain it can be done without too much difficulty.

If people are serious about internationalising the Internet, we should all be in a room with headphones on listening to the top Chinese engineers explain how they do it.

Kieren

@Kieren

I think the keyword is listen.

Britain for many years dismissed Americans as their country cousins. We as a nation did not face up to the fact that our influence Internationally was not only waning, but had no serious economic underpinning. As a consequence the inevitable damage was not only not mitigated, but it was exacerbated.

The days of American economic dominance are drawing to a close. There is nothing that can be done to reverse that situation, even if it were desirable. Much, however, could be done to adjust to the new realities and to find a viable trading niche within the new World order. That, however, can only be done once the US starts treating other nations as partners, rather than minions. It is all a question of who actually needs who. If the US does not start listening to its partners it is not going to become so much isolationist, but isolated, and also very much poorer for the experience.

He's Australian, not American, DW. 

Yes, it would be pretty nice to allow domains names in other scripts.  People in other countries have suffered this long with ascii letters and number domains.  Let them have their own voices in their own languages.  Why is that so scary to some?

Regardless of your dire economic predictions, DW, I can see many ways in which IDNs would benefit my United States, as well.  We have a large, heavily populated country with no official language.  We are a land of immigrants.  IDN.com in any language is as American as Chop Suey (yes, chop suey is American).  We celibrate our heritage (whatever it might be) and we love our New World. 

Everyone I talk to about Internationalized Domain Names loves the idea.  Only the ascii-using domainers and English-speaking techies seem to fear it. 

Just my two cents....

Why couldn't a few TLDs be added for each language? The name servers could reject Unicode outside that language's subset.

E.g. anyone reading the TLD '.日本' would expect the rest of the levels to be in the japanese subset of Unicode.

Leave the english speakers to struggle with mixed characters :-)