Re: [alac] FW: Review and Recommendations for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)]

["Siavash Shahshahani" <shahshah@xxxxxxxx>]

 > I would like to be provocative for once ;>)
>
> Was the introduction of the Ford Model T a PRESSING problem at that time?
> Couldn't folks use public transportation or horses like the vast majority
> of
> the others?
>
> Was the introduction of television a PRESSING problem? Didn't people have
> anything else to do in the evening? (actually, this might be off topic,
> and
> let's stop it before somebody links the subject to the football jerseys
> fashion thread)
>
> Was the introduction of RFC-822-email a PRESSING problem? Couldn't the few
> percent who were using X400 continue with that, and who cares about the
> others anyway?
>
> AH, the good old times of the Internet-Minitel debate in France! I was
> lucky
> enough to be there at that time, and I have to admit it has been an useful
> experience.
>
> (I have been in IBM at the times of the OSI vs. IP debate, another useful
> experience)
>
> Cheers,
> Roberto Gaetano
> ALAC
> ICANN Board Liaison

Why get so excited? I was simply trying to point out that the political
rhetoric surrounding IDN is making it look as if there is a real PRESSING
problem out there that will lead to catastrophic consequences if such and
such is not done. Of course catastrophe could strike, not because the
end-user is hard pressed, but because various opportunists see this as
their chance to discredit ICANN and the present Internet regime. Look at
the heavy emphasis on IDNs in ITU's projected Plenipotentiary. A few years
back ITU tried to convince uninformed third world governments that ICANN
has wrested control of their ccTLDs endangering their sovereignty. This
failed to impress after a while; it was false. Now it is IDN. You have
undoubtedly heard rhetoricians expound how slow progress in IDN is
retarding IT development for hundreds of millions of people around the
globe. I am saying this is BS; what is holding back IT development in most
third world countries is govt-telecom monopolies, access limitations,
filtering, censorship, price of bandwidth,...But politics being a fact of
life, ICANN MUST accelerate its pace, again not because somebody out there
is in dire need of IDN.IDN, but because it will be important in the future
and because it is a political contingency. At my registry we did develop
one of the most sophisticated and efficient IDN systems anywhere because
the technical challenge was very inviting and because we knew that if we
didn't do it the national telecom will get on our back and accuse us of
being indifferent to national needs, etc.  But the result is a very good
system whose time hasn't arrived and is hardly of interest to the end-user
at this time.
Siavash


>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-alac@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-alac@xxxxxxxxx] On
>> Behalf Of Siavash Shahshahani
>> Sent: 19 October 2006 09:39
>> To: Hong Xue
>> Cc: alac@xxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: [alac] FW: Review and Recommendations
>> for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)]
>>
>> Just a few quick observations:
>> 1. If I understand correctly, Internet penetration
>> coefficient for China is around 11%. I believe this 11% is
>> capable of typing in Latin letters just for the address, even
>> though I agree it is much more desirable to be able to do it
>> in the native script and IDNs provide additional choice in
>> domain names. What I wish to emphasize is that despite what
>> some politicians are saying, IDN is not a PRESSING problem at
>> this time.
>> 2. Verisign is obviously interested in the huge China market,
>> but mainly for the future. That's why they were(are?)pushing
>> for DNames.
>> 3. I agree with you that research should start(and it has by
>> Klensin and
>> others) on alternatives to the present DNS.
>> Siavash
>>
>> > I'm in the middle of something so cannot spend much time on our
>> > interesting discussions. The "hard data" may be Verisign's
>> > registration statistics of Chinese-character domain names.
>> The People
>> > who are in the second-largest Internet community in the world and
>> > using the non-alphabet characters are feeling the
>> constraints of the
>> > Latin-script DNS every day. They are keenly want to use
>> their native
>> > scripts. Therefore, Verisign indulges in find such a big market and
>> > eventually stirred up the reactions from other stakeholders.
>> >
>> > I'm not opposing IDNs (including IDN.IDN), but what I'm intend to
>> > emphasize is that the users' demand for non-Latin script could have
>> > been resolved outside the DNS. Since it's determined to provide the
>> > solution within the DNS for whatever reasons--and thus regulated or
>> > constrained by the DNS , the solution should at least fulfil its
>> > fundamental mission--useful to users.
>> >
>> > Hong
>> >
>> > On 10/18/06, Siavash Shahshahani <shahshah@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> As someone intimately involved with implementing IDNs in
>> the last few
>> >> years, I find much of the debate totally irrelevant to the little
>> >> end-user, and I'm afraid IDN has become a field for
>> politicians and
>> >> commercial interests. I'd like to see Hong or anybody else
>> provide me
>> >> some hard data or research results on how many real people
>> truly feel
>> >> disadvantaged by the DNS system as it exists. The fact is that
>> >> Internet has not yet reached those people who would feel the
>> >> disadvantage, i.e., those in the third world totally
>> unfamiliar with
>> >> Latin script. And let me emphasize that unfamiliarity with Latin
>> >> alphabet is not the reason why Internet penetration is low in
>> >> disadvantaged countries. Of course I'd love to see DNS
>> replaced some
>> >> day with a more script-neutral system, but I haven't observed any
>> >> immediate pressing need for this at this moment.
>> >> Let me relate my personal experience as the head of a
>> ccTLD that has
>> >> implemented IDNs: The lack of interest in IDNs after one year is so
>> >> overwhelming('underwhelming?') that we decided to offer as
>> incentive
>> >> a free one-year ASCII domain to IDN registrants. In the last few
>> >> months before this, IDN registration rate had fallen to
>> one-hundredth
>> >> of ASCII registration. In our survey of the reasons for
>> the lack on
>> >> interest, the lack of IDN.IDN ranked fifth among five proposed
>> >> reasons. Still of course I am for IDN.IDN, but let us keep sober
>> >> about all this.
>> >> Siavash
>> >>
>> >> > Confucius said: 'Is it not gentlemanly not to take offense when
>> >> > others fail to understand what you mean?'
>> >> >
>> >> > The non-Latin script users are so gentlemanly that they
>> would not
>> >> > even take offense of the message, let along shooting the
>> messengers.
>> >> >
>> >> > The term "IDN" is actually a paradox.  Domain names in
>> the American
>> >> > Standard Code for Information Interchange is already
>> >> > internationalized--they are being used prevalently
>> around the world.
>> >> > Enabling native non-Latin scripts used in the web/email
>> addresses
>> >> > should be going to another direction--localization to cater the
>> >> > local language users' demand. Then, why do we have a term
>> >> > "internationalized domain names"? Say, are domain names
>> in Yiddish
>> >> > scripts so internationalized as to be usable by Korean people?
>> >> > Yiddish is still for some Jewish communities, and Korean
>> is still for Korean.
>> >> >
>> >> > All the difficulties are caused by forcing the localized
>> solutions
>> >> > into the internationalized context. If it had not been some
>> >> > corporate
>> >> > giant(s) that zealously pursued commercial interests by starting
>> >> > registration of domain names in non-Latin scripts and
>> thus framed
>> >> > this issue into the DNS, all kinds of localized
>> solutions--probably
>> >> > at the application level above the DNS--would have developing
>> >> > steadily and healthly. Ordinary users won't mind whether
>> there are
>> >> > IDN roots or mapping or punycode. They simply want to use their
>> >> > scripts. We should remember who had hijacked the development
>> >> > direction and threw out the concept of IDNs that must be
>> resolved in the DNS.
>> >> >
>> >> > If after ages of profound research,  those highly respectable
>> >> > experts conclude that there is no way to realize the
>> IDNs, then at
>> >> > least users may expect some localized though imperfect
>> solution to
>> >> > address their need. But on the contrary, the experts insist that
>> >> > IDNs can be done and will be done in a way that is
>> different from
>> >> > what the users believe happens or should happen. Then,
>> what is the
>> >> > meaning of the IDNs if they are useless to the users?
>> >> >
>> >> > Hong
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -------------------------------------------------
>> >> IPM/IRNIC
>> >> P.O.Box 19395-5564, Shahid Bahonar Sq.
>> >> Tehran 19548, Iran
>> >> Phone: (+98 21) 22 82 80 80; 22 82 80 81, ext 113
>> >> Cell: (+98 912)104 2501
>> >> Fax: (+98 21) 22 29 57 00
>> >> Email: shahshah@xxxxxxxx, shahshah@xxxxxx
>> >> -----------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -------------------------------------------------
>> >> IPM/IRNIC
>> >> P.O.Box 19395-5564, Shahid Bahonar Sq.
>> >> Tehran 19548, Iran
>> >> Phone: (+98 21) 22 82 80 80; 22 82 80 81, ext 113
>> >> Cell: (+98 912)104 2501
>> >> Fax: (+98 21) 22 29 57 00
>> >> Email: shahshah@xxxxxxxx, shahshah@xxxxxx
>> >> -----------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> IPM/IRNIC
>> P.O.Box 19395-5564, Shahid Bahonar Sq.
>> Tehran 19548, Iran
>> Phone: (+98 21) 22 82 80 80; 22 82 80 81, ext 113
>> Cell: (+98 912)104 2501
>> Fax: (+98 21) 22 29 57 00
>> Email: shahshah@xxxxxxxx, shahshah@xxxxxx
>> -----------------------------------------------
>
>


-------------------------------------------------
IPM/IRNIC
P.O.Box 19395-5564, Shahid Bahonar Sq.
Tehran 19548, Iran
Phone: (+98 21) 22 82 80 80; 22 82 80 81, ext 113
Cell: (+98 912)104 2501
Fax: (+98 21) 22 29 57 00
Email: shahshah@xxxxxxxx, shahshah@xxxxxx
-----------------------------------------------