Quoting Daniel:
ICANN is just preparing to enter the "registry business" with the introduction of the new gTLDs. This makes ICANNs decisions and implementation to what is a variant and what is not comparable with that of any other registry.
ICANN introduced the first new TLDs a decade ago. If the impending round means ICANN is just preparing to enter the registry business, why did the previous two rounds not take them into it?
The DNS is designed in such a way, that uniform technical rules apply to any label at any level in the hierarchy. Therefore, the community will benefit best from our work, if we come up with an agreed and understood "standard" of what variants are, what they are not and how are (or will be) implemented in the todays world of non-ASCII DNS.
I do understand, that ICANN (staff, board) needs fast answers to just few questions in order to proceed with the new gTLD launch, but there are other processes/parties that can benefit from this work, such as the ccNSO IDN PDP, as well as each and every DNS registry from now on.
I recognize the significance of your placing quotes around the word "standard". I also understand the potential utility of a generally applicable statement of suggested registry practices, broader than the document(s) ICANN has charged our study group with preparing. ICANN already maintains such a document under the designation, "ICANN Guidelines for the Implementation of Internationalized Domain Names". Our work is as much intended to inform the maintainers of that text as it is any other facet of ICANN's IDN activity. If we perceive need for releasing an extended statement of our own external to ICANN we need a separate venue for it. Our present charge does not go beyond ICANN's immediate needs, and reframing our mandate is out of scope. Establishing a platform for any further activity we might wish to conduct is probably best deferred until we see how far we get with the initial task we have undertaken. And just to have it said -- the DNS standard (here deliberately without quotes although I'm not certain it's entirely the right word) remains as firmly ASCII oriented as it has ever been. The 'A' in IDNA means something very important and if any members of our group are uncertain about what that is, we would probably benefit from a brief tutorial review.
From what we have so far, there seems to be strong opinion, that variants should be considered character based and script specific. I will again voice my opinion, that variants are label (word) based and language specific. Or even go as far to suggest sometimes they are community or region specific.
Some languages might be simplified enough to use character/script variants -- look at how "good" Latin got translated into ASCII. But my belief is, that todays computers and software are not that primitive, so that we should make such sacrifices for the same of simplicity.
Actually, Latin is quite comfortably accommodated by ASCII. It's the other languages that are written with the same script that may have a worse time of it. The closer consideration of that is, I am assuming, precisely what should be discussed in the Latin study and I will post my own further remarks about it to the dedicated list. /Cary