On Oct 15, 2005, at 5:32 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:
newest Draft Charter:
the DKIM working group will make every reasonable attempt to keep
changes compatible with what is deployed, making incompatible
changes only when they are necessary for the success of the
specifications.
versus
Stephen:
I don't believe there is a
requirement for the dkim standard protocol to be backwards
compatible on-the-wire with what's deployed today, but rather
that the dkim standard be such that it's not a problem to migrate
from today's deployments or perhaps even to run them in parallel.
Folks have been expressing support for the new charter text. I'm
inclined not to perturb that, but have a continuing concern that
forces me to probe one issue: We should make sure that there is a
reasonably clear view of priorities for preservering installed
base... or not.
Is it ok with folks to be required to replace essentially all of
the current software, administration and user deployment?
The new draft charter would seem to impose a very high barrier on
changes that render the new specifications incompatible with
existing implementations. It's language is similar to that of
other IETF efforts that seek to minimize incompatibilities.
However Stephen's comment creates a much, much lower barrier, and
is concerned only with stored data that are queried.
Both are views reasonable, depending upon community need. My guess
is that the IETF's version of DKIM will deploy in about a year, if
we are lucky. So that the migration disruption would occur around
then, and go for a year or two.
(For reference, the DKIM pre-IETF effort similarly debated this
point extensively, relative to DomainKeys compatibility. It's
never an easy choice.)
For what it is worth, my most recent domain scan found absolutely no
growth in the adoption of DK records since the last time I ran the
scan (just before the previous IETF).
I understand there is a desire not to introduce many more things or
drive the spec in new directions, and I agree with that. Having said
that, it is better to make any changes now while adoption is low than
wait until adoption is much higher.
-andy
_______________________________________________
ietf-dkim mailing list
http://dkim.org