Adam M. Costello wrote: >That's not what we're doing. In data intended for machine consumption >(protocol messages, function arguments, machine-readable file formats, >etc) we are insisting that domain names continue to be ASCII-only; >non-ASCII domain names may appear only where they are explicitly invited >by new protocols/interfaces/formats (or new versions of old ones). > >What's bad is if old software and new software both accept the same >things, but behave differently. That's the situation we're afraid of >with 8-bit domain names in DNS. Existing DNS servers already accept >8-bit names in queries. If we were to declare that such queries must >now be handled differently, we'd create interoperability problems.
But domain names in use today are not ASCII-only. I know at least two DNS servers serving names using UTF-8 (Microsofts and .NU-bind). IDNA will change how things are handle. Applications that before sent UTF-8 will now send ACE-names breaking what worked before. This creates interoperability problems. It will force changes in DNS servers, despite IDNA saying that no changes are needed in DNS servers. The .Nu-bind and Microsoft servers will have to be changed so they can both recognise the old native UTF-8 names and the new ACE-names, for the same name. So you see, IDNA will break the current handling of non-ASCII names in DNS. As things will break, why not standardise the usage of non-ASCII in domain names. This would result in some servers breaking, but will give better stability for the future. Dan
