[db-wg] Proposal to allow non-ASCII characters in "org-name:", "person:" and "role:" attributes

Hi Peter,

> On 24 Nov 2023, at 10:57, Peter Hessler via db-wg <db-wg at ripe.net> wrote:
> 
> : ...
> :We can switch to UTF-8, this proposal allows more characters in those attributes without needing to change the database character set.
> :
> 
> I think it would be best if we migrated the entire database to UTF-8
> first, upgrading all LATIN-1 attributes to UTF-8 at that time, then
> change attributes to allow UTF-8 or keep them as ASCII.
> 

We can migate internally to UTF-8 while keeping the current syntax rules, so nothing changes for the user yet (i.e. the database changes but not the interfaces). 

Once we use UTF-8 internally we can start to support non-latin-1 characters in attributes and convert interfaces to use UTF-8, as decided by the community.

> I'd like to avoid adding more LATIN-1 if we can avoid it.
> 

We can allow more characters in names regardless of the character set, this can be done without needing to wait for a UTF-8 migration.

Regards
Ed Shryane
RIPE NCC