I don't speak for Verisign, but I can answer some of the questions:
1. where do you maintain an ASCII list of your language tags?
It is *maintained* probably on some development infrastructure inside Verisign, it is published atleast at
http://www.verisign.com/static/002533.pdf
(found on
http://www.verisign.com/products-services/naming-and-directory-services/naming-services/internationalized-domain-names/idn-standards/idn-character-variants/page_002088.html
)
Should it not be supported on the IANA server and common to all the gTLDs?
I personally don't see why it should be on a IANA server. It is specific to the SRS (so I assume it is also described in the SRS documentation). The only real users of the ASCII list of language tags (what is an ASCII list, BTW?) are the SRS users, as they need to communicate the language code to the SRS.
As for "should it be common to all the gTLDs", I honestly believe the answer should be "no". Each registrar can come up with its own policy - in particular, the question whether to support IDN or not alone is the choice of the registrar.
But then, I don't care that much about IDN in .gov and .mil... For .int, it seems natural to never allow IDN. The other gTLD registries apparently haven't considered IDN yet.
2. is there a list of the permitted UNICODEs codes per languages? For example I am interested in the French and Ukrainian sets.
This I wonder myself. The answer to your literal question is certainly "yes". The corollary question is "can we get it?" to which the answer might be "if you are a SRS participant", or "no".
3. did you decide them by yourself, or did you gather a group of lingual authorities to assist you. This would be very interesting.
See
http://www.verisign.com/products-services/naming-and-directory-services/naming-services/internationalized-domain-names/idn-standards/idn-character-variants/page_001485.html
While working to address the issue of character variants, VeriSign has consulted and will continue to work with all interested stakeholders. These groups include China Network Information Center (CNNIC) (.cn), Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) (.tw), Korea Network Information Center (KRNIC) (.kr), Japan Registry Service (JPRS) (.jp), the Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC), and the IDN Implementation Committee established by ICANN.
4. would there not be a way to register IDN in using their "xn--" version? It would simplify international management by resellers?
Why do you think the SRS currently does not use the xn-- version in registrations? I believe it does - the registrar has to provide the xn-- version, but the SRS will *still* perform the language filters as if a sequence of Unicode characters was provided.
Regards, Martin
