Hello John, I have read the paper and the discussions recently, and I have a few comments. First, I think the paper is very well written and compiles ideas, thoughts and opinions that have been around for quite a while in a way I haven't seen yet. However, I also have some questions. The main confusion that I see with the current draft is that it implicitly distinguishes search, directories, and lookup, but especially the directory area isn't very clear for me. It seems that the assumption is that a directory will return more than one result per query. In some cases, that's helpful, but the assumptions in most cases of using the DNS are different. People don't want to select from a list each time they send out a mail, and they don't want to select from a list each time they follow a link on a Web page. Some more general comments: Nobody really thinks that the DNS is perfect, and we all wish we could redesign it, and every time somebody comes up with something that may need fixing (like i18n now), people start dreaming and discussing about such a redesign, and try to see whether the fix under discussion might be the chance for the redesign. Usually, it's not, because the fix is needed with some urgency, the people needing the fix don't want to do the redesign work, and there are too many things that are unclear (e.g. will the redesign be better? will it ever take off?). I have been trying to think about examples where internationalization was used as a lever for ground-up redesign, but I haven't found it yet. I'm not sure whether that's due to the general problem of redesigns or is to some extent specific to internationalization. Also, once something is built, it starts to be (mis)used for what it is good at, even if it was not designed for that. In some sense, the original design goals become secondary, even if it's always very interesting to understand them. For example, if the flat namespace (in .com,...) hadn't scaled that well (which is at least as much due to hardware improvements than to DNS itself), DNS just wouldn't have been used that way. One thing the draft proposes is to work towards some kind of directory. I know (just from hearsay, I have to admit) that there are various directory solutions around, but none would really just be ready to be used for DNS, and none of them is as ubiquous as e.g. DNS, email, and the Web. It would be very good if somebody with actual experience in that field would write a document discussing the reasons for why this is so, and what we might learn from it. (or send a pointer if such a doc already exists) Regards, Martin. At 00/12/18 05:07 -0500, John C Klensin wrote: >--On Tuesday, 12 December, 2000 10:15 -0800 Hideyo Imazu ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hi. > > > > I observed John Klensin's presentation at the Monday slot of > > IDN in the IETF meeting. I also read through the IETF Draft. > >... > > Having said that, my interpretation of his presentation is > > "now is the time to rethink and overhaul the current resource > > locating schemes in which DNS has the central role." After > > the overhaul we might end up having a next generation DNS > > with directory like feature or some hierarchical directory > > scheme with an innovative design concept. Or we might > > introduce a generic resource locating layer between > > application and DNS. All Internet applications including web > > and email would eventually be based on the new resource > > locating scheme. > > > > John, is this what you really mean? Do you have any > > particular plan to form a BOF or WG for it? What other IDN > > folks think? > >That is, indeed, what I really meant. Still exploring plans >--with the IESG and others-- about how to pursue this. I'd >personally be happy to have the IDN group take it up, but I >infer from Wednesday's meeting that it will need to be done >elsewhere if at all. > >Suggestions welcome. > > john
