RE: [ietf-provreg] EPP and IDN

["Hollenbeck, Scott" <shollenbeck@verisign.com>]

> can anyone tell me something about the relation between EPP 
> and IDN? I 
> have seen that there are various drafts out there (like 
> draft-chung-idnop-epp-idn-00.txt) that deal with IDN issues like 
> variants et al. But is my assumption correct that the base protocol 
> itself does not limit the use of internationalized names in 
> domains and 
> host objects? I mean since XML is able to transport the full Unicode 
> character set, it should be possible to specify non-ASCII 
> characters in 
> domainname related elements. Or does the protocol require that those 
> names are transmitted in their Punycode equivalent, as it happens 
> (AFAIK) in Verisign's current RRP implementation? Is the 
> choice between 
> the "presentation form" and Punycode at descretion of the 
> implementing 
> registry?

I think you've got it right, Klaus.  I'm finding that some communities and
registries want more information than what is carried in the protocol
currently, such as language tags and name bundles.  Those features can be
added with extensions as described in drafts like Edmon's.

The base protocol can handle any character encoding supported by XML.  Some
registries like to work with the punycode representation to check for
conversion errors as the name moves along the provisioning path, but that's
not a protocol requirement.

-Scott-