From: Martin J. Dürst (duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp)
Date: Sat Oct 30 2010 - 06:57:10 CDT
On 2010/10/30 9:17, Markus Scherer wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 3:57 PM, JP Blankert (thuis& PC based)<
> jpblankert@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>
>> Dear unicode.org interested,
>>
>> I discovered at least 1 flaw in the converter tools I used so far (as
>> Verisign's IDN to punycode converter): none of the ones I checkes recognises
>> the German character
>>
>> ß
>>
>> (the sz, as from 'Straße' )
>>
>> correctly, the sign is always dissolved in ss.
>>
>
> This is standard IDNA2003 behavior.
Yes.
> It is usually desirable
It is desirable in searching, but it wasn't desirable in domain names.
The reason it got into IDNA2003 is because the IETF was looking for data
to do case mapping beyond ASCII, and the data available from the Unicode
consortium included the 'ß' -> ss mapping, and the IETF didn't want to
change it because they feared that might start all kinds of discussions
on all kinds of (essentially unrelated) issues.
> because a) many
> German speakers are unsure about when exactly to use ß vs. ss,
Yes, but for many names, it's either one or the other. Essentially, no
rules.
> b) the
> spelling reform a few years ago changed the rules,
Yes. They got way easier and more straightforward.
> and c) Switzerland does
> not use ß at all in German.
Yes. But that's no reason to take it away from those who use it.
(at least myself being Swiss I don't think so)
> This means that for most purposes it is
> counter-productive (and can be a security risk) to distinguish ß and ss.
Well, it can be a security risk to distinguish between 'i' and 'l' and
'1', and so on, and nevertheless, it's being done for good reasons all
the time.
> IDNA2008, an incompatible update, by itself does not map characters.
What's more important, IDNA2008 allows the 'ß' as is.
> UTS #46
> provides a compatibility bridge for both IDNA2003 and IDNA2008, and the ß
> behavior is an option there.
Yes. The basic idea in TR #46 is that in a first phase, 'ß' is mapped to
'ss' for lookup, to give registries with German clients a chance to
their clients to register true 'ß' where necessary. After that, the
mapping can be dropped, so as in the (somewhat distant) future to allow
for cases where a name with 'ß' and a name with 'ss' are resolved
differently.
Regards, Martin.
-- #-# Martin J. Dürst, Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University #-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp
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