IDNAbis spec

Dear Team members

I have been asked by Microsoft Arabia to review the internet draft entitled
“Internationalized Domain Names in Applications, Revised (IDNABIS)” from the
site http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/idnabis-charter.html. These drafts
include:

 <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-07.txt> The Unicode code
points and IDNA 
 <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-rationale-14.txt>
Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Background,
Explanation, and Rationale 
 <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-protocol-17.txt>
Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol 
 <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi-06.txt> Right-to-left
scripts for IDNA 
 <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-defs-12.txt> Internationalized
Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework 
 <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-mappings-05.txt> Mapping
Characters in IDNA 

I have found that there were tremendous efforts behind the work that will
lead soon to the use of Domain names in different languages.

I have gone through all available documents in the site. I needed also to
revisit previous versions of the Internet-Drafts. However, as my
specialization is in Arabic Computing, I have concentrated my study on the
document “ <http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi-06.txt>
Right-to-left scripts for IDNA “.

I have reviewed the disallowed code points of Arabic which are listed below.
A nice thing I have noticed that most of characters that may cause
misleading or confusion have been disallowed as it is stated in
<http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-07.txt> The Unicode code
points and IDNA .


06DD..06DE  

 ARABIC END OF AYAH..ARABIC START OF RUB EL H


FE76..FEFC  

 ARABIC FATHA ISOLATED FORM..ARABIC LIGATURE


FE70..FE72  

 ARABIC FATHATAN ISOLATED FORM..ARABIC DAMMAT


06D4        

 ARABIC FULL STOP


FE74        

 ARABIC KASRATAN ISOLATED FORM


0675..0678  

 ARABIC LETTER HIGH HAMZA ALEF..ARABIC LETTER


FBD3..FD3F  

 ARABIC LETTER NG ISOLATED FORM..ORNATE RIGHT


FD92..FDC7  

 ARABIC LIGATURE MEEM WITH JEEM WITH KHAH INI


FD50..FD8F  

 ARABIC LIGATURE TEH WITH JEEM WITH MEEM INIT


0600..0603  

 ARABIC NUMBER SIGN..ARABIC SIGN SAFHA


066A..066D  

 ARABIC PERCENT SIGN..ARABIC FIVE POINTED STA


06E9

 ARABIC PLACE OF SAJDAH


061B        

 ARABIC SEMICOLON


0640

 ARABIC TATWEEL


061E..061F  

 ARABIC TRIPLE DOT PUNCTUATION MARK..ARABIC Q


0606..060F  

 ARABIC-INDIC CUBE ROOT..ARABIC SIGN MISRA

 

The new algorithmic model used in IDNA2008 allows the label when the final
character in a right to left string requires a combining mark in order to be
correctly represented. It allows diacritics to be included as they are of
type NSM (None spacing Marks). It seems this is important in some right to
left languages such as Yiddish and Dhivehi. However, allowing Arabic
diacritics marks (064b – 065E), which are parts of the non spacing marks, in
domain names will be problematic in the future and might cause a lot of
confusion in domain names. The question could be simplified as to do want a
label in a domain name such as وردة to be different from a label such as
وَردة? The question in different words that if we allow diacritics on the
domain name then a domain name like
مايكروسوفت.شركة
Will be different than the
مَايكروسوفت.شركة
Because in the second one there is a diacritic on the first letter.
Although this diacritic is implicit in the first one. 
So this might cause a lot of problems in the domain names registration and
owner claims.
 
 
Moreover, for the displaying order of the labels of a domain name I have
tried the following hypothetical domain names:
 
Husni.حاسب.شركة
حسني.حاسب.شركة
husni.حاسب.com
حسني.computer.شركة
حسني.حاسب.com
husni.computer.شركة
husni.computer.com
 
The following is an image of the network order from right to left  for
Arabic of the above:

It is clear that when we use two consecutive RTL labels separated by dots
and followed by one LTR label the display order does not look as it should.
The same is true that when we use two consecutive LTR labels separated by
dots and followed by one RTL. The question is should we allow such
confusion?
 
As I have introduced earlier, it an excellent effort towards the
internationalization of domain names.
 
Thank you and best wishes
 
Husni Al-Muhtaseb
http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/ics/muhtaseb/
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: Mamdouh Najjar [mailto:mamdouhn(_at_)microsoft(_dot_)com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 9:08 AM
To: muhtaseb(_at_)kfupm(_dot_)edu(_dot_)sa
Cc: Nasser Kettani
Subject: RE: IDNAbis spec

 

Salam Husni

 

I hope you are well and greetings for the new school year.  Have you had the
chance to look at the content?  Any feed back?

 

Best regards,

 

Mamdouh

 

From: muhtaseb(_at_)kfupm(_dot_)edu(_dot_)sa 
[mailto:muhtaseb(_at_)kfupm(_dot_)edu(_dot_)sa] 
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 6:32 PM
To: Mamdouh Najjar
Cc: Nasser Kettani; Khaled Al-Dhaher
Subject: RE: IDNAbis spec

 

Dear Dr. Mamdouh

Assalamu Alaikum and Eid Mubarak

Thank you for your trust. I’ll look at the contents of the link and I’ll
come back to you soon.

Thank you

Regards

Husni

 

 

From: Mamdouh Najjar [mailto:mamdouhn(_at_)microsoft(_dot_)com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 5:40 PM
To: muhtaseb(_at_)kfupm(_dot_)edu(_dot_)sa
Cc: Nasser Kettani; Khaled Al-Dhaher
Subject: IDNAbis spec

 

Salam Husni

 

Eid Mubarak

 

Thank you for your time today to discuss the IDN Arabic specs and your
readiness to work with us on this important issue.  I’m attaching the link
for your review please.

 

The active drafts, WG mail reflector, charter and other information are
located here  http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/idnabis-charter.html

 

I would like you also to meet Nasser Kettani who is the Regional Standard
Officer (RSO) and who will work with you on this activity.  Please let me
know if you need any support.

 

Kind regards,

 

Mamdouh

+966 559 559 980

 

 

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