Re: [DNSOP] draft-liman-tld-names-04

[Tony Finch <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
> On 11/29/10 11:10 AM, Tony Finch wrote:
> > On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Eric Brunner-Williams wrote:
> > >
> > > there exist rules, much earlier than 1123, about "-" as the initial, or
> > > terminal, byte in a sequence of bytes, and about sequences of two or more
> > > instances of "-" where neither byte is the initial, or terminal, byte in a
> > > sequence of bytes.
> >
> > There has never been a restriction on consecutive hyphens, otherwise they
> > would not have been usable in IDN A-labels.
>
> "have only letters or digits or hyphen as interior characters."
> from 921

That's an informal description of the formal syntax defined in RFCs 608,
810, 952.

> now had there actually been a protocol restriction on sequences of hyphen
> longer than one, (years before any implementation of the protocol) then your
> observation would be correct, and we'd have to use some other mechanism to
> signal "interpret as" to some layer above.

I am confused. You say double hyphens were forbidden then you say they
were permitted.

I think your earlier message meant that before RFC 1123 the allocation
policy did not exactly match the permitted syntax, e.g. double hyphens and
single character labels were permitted by the syntax but not allocated;
initial digits were not permitted by the syntax but were allocated (and
eventually the documented syntax caught up with the policy).

I also think you are agreeing with my argument that alpha-only TLDs are a
policy matter.

Tony.
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