ietf-smime
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Re: XML Schema for draft-ietf-smime-ibearch-09

2008-12-18 15:47:43

[I'm not a member of the S/MIME working group. Please copy me the
messages you send.]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 11:23:03AM -0800,
 Blake Ramsdell <blaker(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote 
 a message of 12 lines which said:

During AUTH48, a comment was sent by Stephane Bortzmeyer to the RFC
editor asking that we create and include an XML schema in
draft-ietf-smime-ibearch-09.

A small note to explain my point: it seemed strange to me that a RFC
defines a XML language, whatever its simplicity, without a formal
schema (whether in W3C Schema, in RelaxNG or in DTD).

BCP 70 "Guidelines for the Use of Extensible Markup Language (XML)
within IETF Protocol" says:

4.7 Validity and Extensibility

   One important value of XML is that there are formal mechanisms for
   defining structural and data content constraints; these constrain the
   identity of elements or attributes or the values contained within
   them.  There is more than one such formalism:

...

   This document makes the following recommendations for the definition
   of protocols using XML:

   o  Protocols should use an appropriate formalism for defining
      validity of XML protocol elements.

...

This is not just a matter of taste. It also has practical
consequences. In the version approved by IESG, there was no way
(natural language or formal schema) to say if <ibe:algorithm> is
mandatory or not inside a <ibe:request>.

Now, I understand it is AUTH48 and this is certainly a substantial
change, not just a spelling fix. Returning to the WG is certainly not
an appealing idea for most WG participants. But I am surprised that
the IESG did not catch this issue.

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