[nc-idn] DRAFT MOTION proposal

[Elisabeth Porteneuve <Elisabeth.Porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr>]

IDN Task Force members

Following the Names Council call on 11 October,
I believe it is important we address the IDN issue, and 
I submit for your consideration the following DRAFT MOTION.

I have been contacting several persons on IDN matter,
the general comment is: we need more time, it is too rushed,
we need to undertstand.

All comments are welcome. Please send them as soon as possible.

Elisabeth
--


DRAFT MOTION.


1. Whereas the technical work by the IETF is at the basis of Internet 
   developments, and recognized as such by the worldwide community 
   and by ICANN;

2. Whereas the IETF IDN engineers determined twelve items to be defined
   on technical level before the ML domain names could be used with the 
   Internet's existing end-to-end model and that preserve globally 
   unique naming in a universally resolvable public name space;

3. Whereas only the first issue on encoding scheme had only just been 
   published by IETF as draft version, remaining as such until March 2002, 
   and without key component defined;

4. Whereas there cannot be an open competition at an application level 
   without the IDN specifications completed and published;

5. Whereas the deployment of IDN space in countries using non ASCII 
   characters is by orders of magnitude of higher importance that in 
   English speaking countries, as it impacts the heart of all cultures;

6. Whereas the introduction of the IDN names requests for the careful, 
   worldwide coordination across all TLD space (unless leading towards 
   political battles, number of encoding prefixes and a corresponding 
   combinatory effects, leading to the total confusion of customers, 
   business and individuals alike, and damaging ML cultural aspects);

7. Whereas it is critical to understand how the whois accessible 
   databases for IDN be populated across all TLD space (gTLD and ccTLD 
   and Registrars alike), as well how it will impact Universal Whois 
   queries;

9. Whereas the International Treaty Organizations, WIPO and ITU, are 
   just planning a joint Symposium on Multilingual Domain Names in Geneva, 
   December 6 and 7, 2001, convening the Member States from the 
   whole planet (the impact of International Domain Names is enough 
   wide and important, that the Internet community understand the issues, 
   not only technical, but the others like the dispute policies);

10. Whereas the domain name system is a key infrastructure component 
    of the Internet and the ICANN is committed to preserve the stability 
    and security of the worldwide resource, taking into account users 
    from the world;



The Names Council urges the ICANN Board to take the necessary steps 
and to stop a transformation of the VeriSign IDN "testbed" under 
dot com/org/net into active domain names and putting them in the 
Root until such time as the IETF standards be completed and the 
worldwide peaceful coordination of IDN deployment may happen. 
The Names Council advise that having multiple and non-interoperable 
implementations in the dns would be harmful for all.



References:

1. The IETF published on 4 Sep 2001 an Internet Draft (expiring 4 Mar 2002)
   http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idn-amc-ace-z-01.txt

2. The IDN testbed authorization under .com given to VeriSign in 
   http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-25sep00.htm (... constructive 
   experimentation with extensions to the domain name system to support 
   multilingual names should be encouraged, provided it is done in a 
   manner consistent with promoting responsible standardization, it avoids 
   disrupting the stability of the Internet or the interoperability of 
   Internet services, and its experimental character is clearly 
   understood by all affected)

3. The NC resolution (Decision D2) in Stockholm
   http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010602.NCstockholm-minutes.html

4. The ML implications on the stability of the Internet or the 
   interoperability of Internet services became of utmost importance 
   to all stakeholders, including governments and the ICANN Board, 
   as shown in Montevideo resolutions 01.94 to 01.100, establishing 
   an IDN Committee as part of ICANN Corporation. Chaired by 
   Director Masanobu Katoh.
   http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-10sep01.htm

5. VeriSign announcement to convert its current RICE encoding 
   used at the testbed to AMC-ACE-Z, with deployment of zone 
   files from October 27th, 2001 through November 12th, 2001, 
   and making the testbed domain names active
   cf: http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/registrars/Arc01/msg01279.html