Subject: WG Review: Internationalized Resource Identifiers (iri)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:00:02 -0800 (PST)

A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Applications Area.  The
IESG has not made any determination as yet.  The following draft charter
was submitted, and is provided for informational purposes only.  Please
send your comments to the IESG mailing list ([email-masked]) by January 12,
2010.

Internationalized Resource Identifiers (iri)
---------------------------------------
Last Modified: 12-12-2009

Current Status: Proposed Working Group 
 
Chair(s):
TBD

Applications Area Director(s):
Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>

Applications Area Advisor:
Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>

Mailing Lists:
TBD

Description of Working Group:

This working group will produce
* A new version of RFC 3987: "Internationalized Resource
Identifiers (IRIs)" using draft-duerst-iri-bis as the base
* A new version of RFC 4395: "Guidelines and Registration
Procedures for New URI Schemes"

The new version of RFC 3987 may be split into separate documents,
if, in the opinion of the chair(s), it would facilitate distribution
of the workload and allow more focused reviews. For example, the
following breakdown has been suggested:

* Handling of Internationalized domain names in IRIs (BCP)
* Internationalization Considerations in IRIs (guidelines
for BIDI, character ranges to avoid, special considerations) (BCP)
* Syntax, parsing, comparison of IRIs (Standards track)

The working group starts with a relatively mature update to
RFC 3987 in preparation; the primary focus of the group
is to resolve conflicting uses, requirements and best practices
for internationalized URLs/URIs/IRIs and various other forms,
among many specifications and committees, while moving toward
consistent use of IRIs among the wide range of Internet
applications that use them. In particular:

* The IRI specification(s) must (continue to) be suitable
for normative reference with Web and XML standards from W3C
specifications. The group should coordinate with the W3C working
groups on HTML5, XML Core, and Internationalization, as well
as with IETF HTTPBIS WG to ensure acceptability.
* The IRI specification(s) should be follow best practices
for domain names. The group should coordinate with the IETF
IDNABIS working group and Unicode Consortium to assure acceptability.
* Explicit review by experts on (and native speakers) of RTL
languages, of the recommendations for BIDI languages,
is required.

The Working Group will examine at least one and possibly more
URI/IRI schemes to check that the new specification(s) are
appropriate for existing schemes. Schemes suggested for
review include http:, pop:, imap:, xmpp:, mailto:, and sip:.

Changes to RFC 3986 ("Uniform Resource Identifier (URI):
Generic Syntax") are explicitly out of scope of this charter,
and may only be considered with a charter update.

Goals and Milestones:

January 2010 Additional update of Internet drafts by editor(s)
February 2010 Review of Internet Drafts, directions during W3C and IETF
May 2010 Working group Last Call of all documents
June 2010 Publish IRI documents as RFCs (BCP, standards track, as 
appropriate)