Progress of 5/6 IDNABIS documents & mappings consistency issue

[Lisa Dusseault <[e-mail]>]

As Vint has posted
(http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/idna-update/2009-December/006387.html),
we have had good discussions about ß, final sigma, and possible
transition strategies. These decisions and discussions have been
reflected in John's recent update to draft-ietf-idnabis-rationale-15.
Thus, I have put the rationale document, along with
draft-ietf-idnabis-bidi, draft-ietf-idnabis-defs,
draft-ietf-idnabis-protocol and draft-ietf-idnabis-tables, on the next
possible IESG Telechat (Jan 7) for IESG consideration.

On the topic of mappings, I've previously noted
(http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/idna-update/2009-December/005962.html)
that we had some IETF Last Call issues raised about how compatible our
idnabis-mapping list of mappings is with the mappings of IDNA2003.  I'd like
to be sure there's WG consensus on these issues before progressing the
mappings document.  If some links out there contain characters that were
required to be mapped in IDNA2003, and software is upgraded to IDNA2008
in a way that makes those links fail, that seems to be something we should
be concerned about.  The key issues seem to me to be what the WG opinion
is on having one set of optional mappings for better interoperability, or two
or more to encourage flexibility. Michel Suignard's recent message
(http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/idna-update/2009-December/006389.html)
seems like a good starting point for that discussion.

I'm hoping despite the holidays we can conclude these discussions in the
next few weeks, and idnabis-mappings may even be able to catch up with
the other documents.

Lisa