[UA-discuss] Serbia Proposes Law Changes to Halt Cyrillic’s Decline

Thu Aug 16 10:31:25 UTC 2018

Dear Roberto, all,

This law is just a proposal. Who knows how it will look like in final version. Regarding IDNs, this law, in any version, is not a guarantee for a high number of domain names. Usage of non-Latin script in real life is currently the biggest, but still - just one of the components of IDN success, as I said in previous mail. Other issues can’t be solved (only) by this law. There is a tons of issues in using Cyrillic on computers and mobile devices in small countries like Serbia (or Georgian script in Georgia, or Armenian script in Armenia or Bulgarian Cyrillic in Bulgaria…), but it’s not (only) on Government to solve keyboards or SMS fees or any other problem. They need to create an environment in country for solving those problems, and this law can be a step forward… 

Cheers,

Dusan

From: Roberto Gaetano [mailto:roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2018 7:30 PM
To: Dusan Stojicevic <dusan at dukes.in.rs>
Cc: Mark Svancarek (CELA) <marksv at microsoft.com>; Universal Acceptance <ua-discuss at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] Serbia Proposes Law Changes to Halt Cyrillic’s Decline

Hi Dusan. 

Just to add to your status report on IDNs, may I say that also for IDN gTLDs the registration numbers are a rounding error and there is no marketing effort.

Actually, I should not generalise but speak only for my Registry, that is Public Interest Registry.

But I have a question. Do you think that this new approach from the Serbian Government could change things? If they really want to favour the use of Cyrillic they must fix the problem of the keyboards and SMS fees. This, in the medium term, could change also the attitude of users about IDN, and force the operators to support IDNs. Or is it a dream?

Given the success of the meeting in Tallinn I am having some exchange of emails with Patrik and John to build on that at the next EuroDIG.

Incidentally, there will be a couple of sessions about IDN at APTLD74 in September, and given the number of people not using latin script there might be some interesting discussions on IDN.

Cheers,

Roberto

On 15.08.2018, at 17:20, Dusan Stojicevic <dusan at dukes.in.rs <mailto:dusan at dukes.in.rs> > wrote:

Dear Mark, all,

Sorry for a delay in reacting, this news hits me on vacation.

As I am from Serbia, I can say that this topic reach domestic headlines because of the summer time with lack of more “important” news. Still, it brings Cyrillic script into focus and highlighted some problems considering usage of Cyrillic in one small country.

There is no mentioning of IDNs, because of several reasons. Firstly, Serbian registry, for a long time, doesn’t want to promote national IDN TLD, and the situation is more-less equal in all small non-Latin countries with IDN TLD. The number of domain names in IDNs is like a statistical error and it brings no business to registries, registrars… Simply, situation is> there is no (big) demand. It’s the same in countries which use Latin script with diacritics, number of IDNs on SLD is small.

Only in big non-Latin countries (China, Russia, India…) you can find significant number of IDN domain names. 

Patrick Fältström and me, we were talking in Tbilisi about the reasons behind that, during EuroDIG’s IDN session. I can say that the problem is not pure technical, but rather a mix: lack of usage of non-Latin script in real life (mentioned in article, Serbs knows Latin, and we use this script like our own, and situation is similar in small non-Latin countries – Georgia, Armenia, name it), and lack of natural and comfortable usage of those scripts on computers (f.e. there is no Cyrillic keyboards on laptops and for computers in Serbia; if you type SMS on Cyrillic you pay more; default settings on new mobile devices is Latin script for all apps, and you get mix of scripts if you change to non-Latin; … etc). IDNs can be just added in brackets, but certainly not as a major topic… 

People, they usually go down the line of lower resistance… 

Cheers,

Dusan Stojicevic 

From: UA-discuss [mailto:ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Mark Svancarek (CELA) via UA-discuss
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2018 6:24 PM
To: Universal Acceptance <ua-discuss at icann.org <mailto:ua-discuss at icann.org> >
Subject: [UA-discuss] Serbia Proposes Law Changes to Halt Cyrillic’s Decline

 <http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbia-proposes-law-changes-to-halt-cyrillic-s-decline-08-01-2018> http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbia-proposes-law-changes-to-halt-cyrillic-s-decline-08-01-2018

No mention if IDNs, though.

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