John,

 

Thank you for your very elaborate explanation.  I appreciate it.   

 

I am very much aware of your background and involvement in the internationalization issues, John, along with your distinguished career. I thank the Internet for that.  It is also a privilege that ICANN is assisted by you, as it would be the same for me, to meet with you some day.  I am glad Tina and co. has given us the opportunity to discuss the very complex issues we are dealing with at ICANN regarding policy over IDNs. 

 

To clarify my point, John, my reference to asking Tina on the question below:

 

I was also not aware that John was involved in the 'testbed' scenario until I saw the attachment you sent, based on some of his responses in the Council meeting.  Would he be working on that with you.   

 

was specific to the 'test beds' as you can see,and comes directly from the question I asked you during our Jan 17 meeting, on the 'test beds' while discussing the IETF Draft doc on the IDN issues. 

 

Your response to me interalia, you did not recommend personally the test beds, was not personally involved in the development of the guidelines except peripherally etc...   I suppose that threw me off and I was trying to confirm your involvement from this specific subject and not necessarily your involvement within the  'internationalization'  issues, to which again, we are grateful for your input.

 

I hope that shades some light of where I was coming from, and provide clarification to my question.

 

Thanks again for your response (all) and kind regards,

 

Sophia   

 

On 26/01/06, John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com> wrote:

Sophia,

Let me respond to the part of this that asks about my
involvement...

--On Thursday, 26 January, 2006 13:46 -0800 Sophia B
<sophiabekele@gmail.com> wrote:

>...
> 2) I was also not aware that John was involved in the
> 'testbed' scenario until I saw the attachment you sent, based
> on some of his responses in the Council meeting.  Would he be
> working on that with you.

I am very involved in internationalization issues although the
main focus of my work is outside of ICANN.  I've been heavily
involved in the design of the protocols themselves, procedures
for registering of labels containing Chinese characters,
alternative models for IDN TLDs, and generally in trying to
figure out how to maximize the value of IDNs without in the
process reducing the value or utility of the DNS itself.  In
that context, I've been thinking about testbeds and ways to
proceed; the notes you saw represent some of my writing on the
subject.   In addition, various of Cary, Patrik, Tina, several
others, and myself seem to end up having frequent conversations
about various internationalization, language, and character set
issues, including but not limited to IDNs.

In terms of "working on that" and other activities in the ICANN
context, there was a plan for me to assume a support role for
Tina and others in developing and explaining ICANN's plans and
efforts related to IDNs.  That presumably would have included
direct or indirect support for GNSO and ccNSO Council efforts.
That plan abruptly ended last summer when ICANN's senior
management informed me that they had concluded that they saw no
need for any assistance from me in IDN-related areas.   I have
not asked Tina, and would consider it inappropriate to do so,
but I assume that, if she were consulted on that decision, she
favored keeping me involved.  To put the rest of this in
context, I participated in the call because the request was to
discuss a draft IAB report and I feel some obligation to help
with IAB issues.   Otherwise, had the request to participate in
the call or otherwise support an ICANN effort come from ICANN
staff or the GNSO, given the way things were left in August, I
would have been obligated to respond to the invitation by asking
for a purchase order.

regards,
   john