Hi Bill, Could you remind me what IP concern are your referring to? I know the one about well-behave variant sets (which I am resuming to work on), but it doesn't seem to be the one you are referring to in the below text. Thanks. Also, I agree with Michael's assertion that domain names are identifiers or mnemonics, not words. So grammar rules should not apply to DNS labels. Best, Dennis On 1/2/20, 9:35 AM, "Latingp on behalf of Michael Bauland" <latingp-bounces@icann.org on behalf of Michael.Bauland@knipp.de> wrote: Hi Bill, On 20.12.2019 01:32, Bill Jouris wrote: > Dear colleagues, > > It seems to me that we have two options to address the IP's concerns > about Sharp S: > > 1) we can say something like > > "Sharp S can only occur when used in a valid German word or name. > Thus it cannot be the first letter in a TLD, must follow a vowel, > etc." > > At which point we will need to reference an authoritative source on what > are valid German words and valid German names. > > 2) we can say something like > > "The variant relationship between double S (ss) and Sharp S exists > because of different usages in different places where German is the > official language. But that relationship is otherwise irrelevant > for constructing TLDs. From the beginning, TLDs have existed which > were not valid words. That practice has continued as new gTLDs (not > to mention ccTLDs) were established. It is not our intention to > police German spelling rules. Therefore a Sharp S can occur at the > beginning of a TLD, following a consonant (including following > another Sharp S), etc." > > > I confess that my initial inclination was to go with option 1. But > Michael has convinced me that the second option is more reasonable. I still think 2 is the correct choice. People are registering labels not (necessarily) words. I admit it's a theoretical case, but what if some fancy German start-up (whose founder is some Mrs. Maß) decides to call her company "ßam". The company turns out to be a huge success and their logo is visible all over Europe. Now they're so big, they want to get their own TLD (like many other companies have done before). But, hey, wait, they cannot register .ßam, because a small group of people (call them the Latin GP) decided it's not a real word. They could very understandably wonder why a company called GMX is allowed to have .gmx but they themselves can't have .ßam, while both labels are not words. Michael -- ____________________________________________________________________ | | | knipp | Knipp Medien und Kommunikation GmbH ------- Technologiepark Martin-Schmeisser-Weg 9 44227 Dortmund Germany Dipl.-Informatiker Fon: +49 231 9703-0 Fax: +49 231 9703-200 Dr. Michael Bauland SIP: Michael.Bauland@knipp.de Software Development E-mail: Michael.Bauland@knipp.de Register Court: Amtsgericht Dortmund, HRB 13728 Chief Executive Officers: Dietmar Knipp, Elmar Knipp _______________________________________________ Latingp mailing list Latingp@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/latingp _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.