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fundamentally yeah - it's a bit colonial to continue ignoring the reality that us-ascii is inappropriate for large chunks of the world."
I totally agree with the drive to disengage with the colonial past and move on in all areas of life. However, the RIR Databases reflect a public global registry of IP addresses, and in parts also serve as IRRs. If we are going to allow all character sets within these databases then we must answer a number of non technical questions, such as:
-What is a global IP address registry?
-What purpose does it/do they serve?
-Who is it for?
-Who needs to be able to read, understand, interpret, convert what parts of it?
Before we even ask those questions we need to consider who is going to answer these questions and on whose behalf? Is this going to be addressed separately by each RIR? Or is it better to consider a cross RIR Database/Registry solution?
This is why I believe we should go for a simple Punycode option now and then start to consider the bigger picture and finally address difficult questions that have been brushed under the carpet for many years.
cheers
denis
co-chair DB-WG