Re: New Internet Draft on registering IDNs

[Paul Hoffman / IMC <phoffman@xxxxxxx>]

At 1:59 PM -0500 4/4/03, Martin Duerst wrote:
> But it is not clear to me from your current document whether you intend
> this to be the only table/algorith, or whether you think there might
> be several.

I'll try to be clearer. And, obviously, other folks can submit 
different proposals, some of which might be more framework-y than 
this one.

> For example, an u-umlaut in German is often equated with 'ue'.
> Now suppose that the German TLD wants to define tables to take
> this into account, and apply these to the current ASCII registrations
> in .de. Can they design the tables so that they don't have to take
> away already registered domains from their owners?

This ties directly into the overlapping bundle question that I need 
to clarify. Every all-ASCII name in a a zone is inherently a bundle 
of one. The bundle for dürst would contain dürst and duerst, and the 
bundle for duerst would contain just duerst.

An unstated rule that needs to be stated is that you cannot allocate 
names from bundles that already exist in the zone. They can be in the 
bundle and will block further registration, but they won't go into 
the zone for that registrant.

In the case above, assume that someone already has duerst (which is 
true in .de and .ch). You now register dürst and get the bundle of 
dürst and duerst, with dürst being allocated. The current owner of 
duerst lets their registration expire. You could then put duerst into 
the zone as part of your bundle, if the registry rules allow that. 
But, even if you couldn't put it in the zone, the existence of your 
bundle would prevent me from registering duerst directly.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium