Bug#633837: libidn11: German ß (LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S) should no longer be converted to ss
package: wnpp
retitle 633837 RFP: libidn2 (for IDNA2008 support including the SHARP S letter)
severity 633837 wishlist
stop
(see below)
On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:34:55 +0200
Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> wrote:
> Christian Hammers <chammers@netcologne.de> writes:
>
> > On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:24:46 +0200
> > Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Christian Hammers <chammers@netcologne.de> writes:
> >>
> >> > Package: libidn11
> >> > Version: 1.15-2
> >> > Severity: normal
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Quoting
> >> > http://www.denic.de/en/domains/internationalized-domain-names/sharp-s.html
> >> > "Since 4 August 2010, the IDNAbis standard allows the Latin small
> >> > letter sharp s –
> >> > also known as "Eszett" or "sharp s" ("ß") – to be used as part of
> >> > a domain name"
> >> >
> >> > The IDN library (1.15 as well as 1.22 from unstable) still
> >> > converts it to "ss":
> >> >
> >> > $ idn --quiet --idna-to-ascii baß.de
> >> > bass.de
> >> >
> >> > Changing the behaviour will of course break backwards compatibility but
> >> > as the compatibility was broken by the IDNA standard itself, the library
> >> > should continue to follow the standard (at least in methods that have
> >> > "idna" in their name).
> >>
> >> Hi Christian. libidn.so implements the old IDNA standard, retroactively
> >> called IDNA2003.
> >>
> >> The page above talks about IDNAbis, or usually called IDNA2008, which
> >> libidn.so and idn don't support. IDNA2008 and IDNA2003 are not
> >> compatible.
> >>
> >> The GNU Libidn project contains another library and tool, libidn2 and
> >> idn2, which implements the IDNA2008 algorithm. It works like this:
> >>
> >> jas@latte:~$ idn2 baß.de
> >> xn--ba-hia.de
> >> jas@latte:~$
> >>
> >> So I believe your request should be re-categorised as 1) a request to
> >> package libidn2, and 2) modify any applications you are concerned with
> >> to support it. If you just want to do the conversions on the command
> >> line, 1) will suffice.
> >>
> >> I'll see if I can get some packaging up and running...
> >
> > I would rather have libidn2 treated just as an update to libidn11 i.e.
> > package "idn (2.0)", "libidn-dev (2.0)" and "libidn20 (2.0)" that
> > replace the current /usr/bin/idn tool in the next Debian release.
> > (or libidn2 if the linker figures correctly that it is newer than
> > libidn11)
>
> That won't work -- IDNA2003 and IDNA2008 are fundamentally (at the
> specification level) so different that you can't replace one with the
> other. The APIs of the libraries are also different.
>
> Further, IDNA2003 will continue to be useful in parallel to IDNA2008,
> and vice versa.
Then I re-categorise it as Request-For-Packaging. Anibal, will you package
idn2 as well?
bye,
-christian-
Reply to: