Vasily (just guessing at the Anglicization of your name; apologies if I got it wrong, but that could illustrate part of the underlying issue), Our differing experiences may be leading us to somewhat different conclusions even though we agree on the objective. Inline below... --On Thursday, September 15, 2022 17:55 +0300 Василий Долматов <vdolmatov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hello! > > I understand your concern, that if this content in e-mail > addresses will be standardised, then at least for some period > of time (very lengthy one, indeed) some «unreachable» > address domain could be created. at least for some time, while > all MUAs will be upgraded. Actually, that is not quite the concern. I am trying to find a way to allow an effective, safe, way for people to transition into the use of non-ASCII email addresses. I recognize that it may take some (long) time before all MUAs are updated but, in a way, that is exactly the point -- not to wait, but to be sure that a smooth transition is possible. Also, if "all MUAs will be upgraded" implies that all such MUAs should be able to handle (as input and in consistent displays) any local part that is valid under SMTPUTF8, the time before that occurs is likely to be "forever". Around 6000 years of history with writing systems and some issues in the design of Unicode are against a quick result. > from the other side, if this will not be standardised - there > will never be move forward in technology. And, if it is standardized in a way that demonstrably will not work in situations that might be encountered, that is likely to result in a much longer delay before there is general adoption and possibly even regulatory pressure to avoid non-ASCII addresses. While we have been talking about MUAs, presumably standalone ones, I was reminded this morning that the HTML specs for the email input type do not allow anything but ASCII text in the local part. Changing that is under discussion, but that discussion does not involve the IETF, much less REGEXT. Would a change make this EPP extension easier to deploy? Most likely. But, until it is made and widely adopted, these addresses cannot even be input to an HTML page that uses the "email" input type for validation. Again, that is not in any way an argument against allowing non-ASCII email addresses in EPP. It is an argument for being sure that all-ASCII alternatives are available when needed. > I think, that the proper way forward is to standardise new, > extended approach, whereas note that these addresses could not > be for some time be globally accessible (until software > refreshment cycle will occur) and should be used for official > and/or critical purposes with caution. First, I agree with the cautionary note ... and recall that there has been some resistance so far to incorporating such things into the spec, with the position taken so far (as I understand it) being that this a strictly a matter between registrar and registry on which the IETF should not take a position. However, I suggest that anything that is used in conjunction with the registration of a domain name, especially part of contact information has the potential to become something used for or associated with official and/or critical purposes, is a potential problem. That suggests that, if your suggested caution were taken seriously, no one should actually use the approach in the spec until the time comes when the addresses are globally accessible and meaningful (however that is defined, which is, itself, a tricky question). So, what I am suggesting is that an extension be adopted to EPP (presumably a modification to the current spec) that allows, and to the extent possible, encourages, the use of non-ASCII email addresses, the local parts included. I am also suggesting that the best way to facilitate that, in the world that I think we agree exists, is to allow for the addition of an all-ASCII fallback email address for situations in which it might be appropriate and/or necessary. I still do not suggest that be a requirement but, if a registry or, e.g., ICANN, asked me for advice, you may be able to guess what I would tell them. For situations in which someone needing to use an email address, tries to use or encounters a non-ASCII one, and hits some sort of roadblock (MUA, HTML, or official and/or critical problems) it will be possible to have the all-ASCII address available and smoothly fall back to it. The alternative, in terms of encouraging deployment, is that when (and I believe that is not "if", but it doesn't make much difference) those roadblocks are encountered, those encountering them have two options -- (i) some sort of per-situation out of band solution that may require use of the non-ASCII email address in order to obtain an alternative to it (sometimes known as a "chicken and egg" problem) or (ii) deciding that non-ASCII addresses are just not ready yet. The latter is a guaranteed setback to any desires or plans for early deployment, especially if the party encountering the problem is in a position to make official /regulatory rules about what is allowed. That view suggests something else: one alternative to having an all-ASCII alternative address available is to spell out, in the specification, exactly what one should do to proceed if a non-ASCII address is encountered and cannot be handled. However, the authors seem determined (and, fwiw, I mostly agree with them) to keep such explanations or guidelines out of the spec. In addition, I suspect that, if it were spelled out, it would either be the end of this extension in the IETF or the foundation for an argument that organizations with regulatory authority (or who, for example, pay attention to the needs of law enforcement agencies) should ban the use of those addresses entirely. best regards, john -- last-call mailing list last-call@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call
