I know this is an awfully late time to bring this up. Why was the
"cleartext" feature of PEM's Base64 removed from MIME's Base64. It
seems, now, this is a gratuitious incompatibility which may make us
non-interoperable with PEM's Base64. Having a cleartext capability
may, in fact, be useful. Are the PEM people going to adopt MIME's
modification of Base64, which would make the point moot? What should a
Base64 decoder do when it see's a `*'?
I think the Base64 issue may be important enough to hold
publication.
There is no need to hold up publication.
Your comment is based on the currently published PEM specifications, not
on the latest and greatest versions that are now internet drafts. In
other words, the current MIME base64 is 100% compatible with the PEM
specifications. The inconsistency is because MIME has overtaken PEM and
published works may not reference internet drafts.
Also, I am not sure what you mean by "cleartext"? I'm assuming what you
mean is a non-private message, ie a message that is not encrypted,
distinct from a message that is encoded via Base64.
Jim