555
30th June 2006, 06:23 PM
>>VINT CERF: The next item on the agenda has to do with the schedule of revision for the IDN guidelines.
And I'd like to call on professor Hualin Qian to introduce this resolution.
>>HUALIN QIAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Whereas, the board expresses its gratitude to the volunteers, in particular, in the TLD registries working group, and the IDN president's advisory committee, for their efforts on IDN guideline revisions, related changes to the IANA repository, and their continuing work to determine how best to achieve the stable insertion of IDN strings into the root in a manner that has no appreciable negative impact on existing functionality of the DNS.
Whereas, pursuant to resolutions 05.98, 99, and 100, the ICANN board of directors tasked the IDN working group to continue its important work and return to the board with specific IDN improvement recommendations.
Whereas, the TLD registries working group has met regularly via teleconference and has provided a status update and the version 2.1 of the IDN guidelines on 27 February 2006.
Whereas, the members of the TLD registries working group also provided their expertise in relation to the secure and stable introduction of internationalized top-level labels, and by focusing on this important task, have requested that the board allow for additional time to continue the revision work of the IDN guidelines to reach a BCP status.
Resolved, the ICANN board acknowledges the significant work performed by the members of the TLD registries working group, accepts the request for additional time so that the working group can continue its reframing of the guidelines in a manner appropriate for further development as a best current practices, BCP, document, and to return to the board in time for the Sao Paulo meeting currently scheduled 2nd to 8th December 2006, with a timeline for further progress in this area.Thank you.
>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Professor Qian.
May I have a second for this resolution?
Vanda seconds.
Just a couple of comments on IDNs.
It's -- This week, we have spent a substantial amount of time discussing internationalized domain names.
Tina Dam has gone to an enormous amount of trouble to organize several sessions on the subject.
We've had experts speaking on IDNs.
So this work is incredibly important, but it's also incredibly hard and complicates.
So I'm very favorably disposed to this request for additional time on the grounds that we have to get this right.
As we start introducing IDNs into the system, it's very hard to back out again.
So I'm very much favorably disposed here.
And I appreciate the continued work to clarify what is needed to make sure that IDNs will work into the future.
One of the things which I hadn't appreciated, and learned during the course of this week, is that the Unicode set, the code base for the scripts that we are using, has to be revised from time to time, and that those revisions, which allow us to put new languages or new scripts into the system, might in fact be in some sense inimical to our encoding schemes which have been adopted at the IETF.
With any good fortune, the experts will find a way around the tension between those two mechanisms, because it would be a serious problem if we were unable to follow changes to the Unicode tables.
So this simply underscored for me the need for care in working through the specifics.
Are there any comments on this resolution that other board members wish to make?
In that case, I'll call for a vote on this resolution.
If you approve it, we will offer the TLD registries some additional time to complete their work and we'll get, of course, an update on where they are during the Sao Paulo meetings later this year.
All those in favor, please raise your hand.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11.
Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, the resolution passes.
And I'd like to call on professor Hualin Qian to introduce this resolution.
>>HUALIN QIAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Whereas, the board expresses its gratitude to the volunteers, in particular, in the TLD registries working group, and the IDN president's advisory committee, for their efforts on IDN guideline revisions, related changes to the IANA repository, and their continuing work to determine how best to achieve the stable insertion of IDN strings into the root in a manner that has no appreciable negative impact on existing functionality of the DNS.
Whereas, pursuant to resolutions 05.98, 99, and 100, the ICANN board of directors tasked the IDN working group to continue its important work and return to the board with specific IDN improvement recommendations.
Whereas, the TLD registries working group has met regularly via teleconference and has provided a status update and the version 2.1 of the IDN guidelines on 27 February 2006.
Whereas, the members of the TLD registries working group also provided their expertise in relation to the secure and stable introduction of internationalized top-level labels, and by focusing on this important task, have requested that the board allow for additional time to continue the revision work of the IDN guidelines to reach a BCP status.
Resolved, the ICANN board acknowledges the significant work performed by the members of the TLD registries working group, accepts the request for additional time so that the working group can continue its reframing of the guidelines in a manner appropriate for further development as a best current practices, BCP, document, and to return to the board in time for the Sao Paulo meeting currently scheduled 2nd to 8th December 2006, with a timeline for further progress in this area.Thank you.
>>VINT CERF: Thank you very much, Professor Qian.
May I have a second for this resolution?
Vanda seconds.
Just a couple of comments on IDNs.
It's -- This week, we have spent a substantial amount of time discussing internationalized domain names.
Tina Dam has gone to an enormous amount of trouble to organize several sessions on the subject.
We've had experts speaking on IDNs.
So this work is incredibly important, but it's also incredibly hard and complicates.
So I'm very favorably disposed to this request for additional time on the grounds that we have to get this right.
As we start introducing IDNs into the system, it's very hard to back out again.
So I'm very much favorably disposed here.
And I appreciate the continued work to clarify what is needed to make sure that IDNs will work into the future.
One of the things which I hadn't appreciated, and learned during the course of this week, is that the Unicode set, the code base for the scripts that we are using, has to be revised from time to time, and that those revisions, which allow us to put new languages or new scripts into the system, might in fact be in some sense inimical to our encoding schemes which have been adopted at the IETF.
With any good fortune, the experts will find a way around the tension between those two mechanisms, because it would be a serious problem if we were unable to follow changes to the Unicode tables.
So this simply underscored for me the need for care in working through the specifics.
Are there any comments on this resolution that other board members wish to make?
In that case, I'll call for a vote on this resolution.
If you approve it, we will offer the TLD registries some additional time to complete their work and we'll get, of course, an update on where they are during the Sao Paulo meetings later this year.
All those in favor, please raise your hand.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11.
Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, the resolution passes.