[db-wg] Proposal to allow UTF8

Dear DB-WG Members

Proposal:

I propose to allow UTF8 in all free text attributes of all DB objects
except in primary keys.

Description:

RIPE NCC service region covers Europe, the Middle East and parts of
Central Asia. Moreover we have users from outside of this region. This
means that WHOIS DB stores data for people and organizations from number
of different countries using number of different alphabets.

At this moment, all data in the RIPE WHOIS DB have to be stored using
7-bit plain US ASCII character set.

[As a side note: It is technically possible to store some UTF8 content
in some attributes, but the answer to whois query (both terminal and web
based) returns "?" character in this case.]

Lack of the full support for national character sets leads to some
problems which includes, but is not limited to:

1. Mistakes in person/organization names due to national->english and
english->national (based mostly on guess) conversion.
2. Mistakes in person/organization address due to national->english and
english->national (based mostly on guess) conversion.
3. Conflict of converted words with other correct words (most visible in
latin-based character sets).
4. Possible offensive word formation due to national->english
conversion of names and/or addresses of person/organization.

[As a side note to points no 1-3: This could lead to some problems when
LEA tries to find out precisely who should be contacted in case of
abuse.]

On the other side, community members needs to know who is responsible
for certain resource without the necessity of understanding all the
others character sets. Moreover, some objects are filled with data that
has to be provided in ASCII character set due to business rules (like
ORGANISATION object details for LIRs). RIPE NCC has a policy to insist
on latin based names for organisation objects that it verifies
(allocated, and sponsored end-user space).

Taking this into accout I propose to allow UTF8 in all free text
attributes of all DB objects except in primary keys.

Some possible issues to be addressed:

1. When this proposal will be supported by the DB-WG, then it has to be
discussed at least with AA-WG and AP-WG.
2. UTF8 may cause problems for client code.

Comment: The proper implementation plan and announcements schedule
should be prepared.

3. UTF8 may result in contact addresses and names that are not readable
by a large part of the community.

Comment: Primary keys (mostly names) still have to be in ASCII character
set. Moreover, LIRs data are also in ASCII character set due to business
rules.

4. At this moment there are no major technical issues blocking UTF8
support in the RIPE DB back-end. However thorough checks have to be
done.

Looking for your comments.

Piotr

-- 
gucio -> Piotr Strzyżewski
E-mail: Piotr.Strzyzewski at polsl.pl