Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> writes:
Now, we can say that almost all the IETF standards are Unicode-able.
This is a _very_ optimistic thing to say, as it suggests that "we are almost done". Bottom line: Internationalization of application protocols is a case-by-case issue. Each applications needs to do a self-evaluation to see whether it can handle internationalized characters. It's not just a a simple "they can use UTF-8". There are plenty of application protocols that forbid non-ascii to be used (or where the deployed base chokes if non-ascii appears). So it takes real work and thinking to transition to a system where those protocols are fully internationalized. Email is just a rather prominent example. See the thread with a subject of "IETF.org does its part on internationalization" at http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/thrd2.html for a timely message that adds detail to this. Thomas