Steve,
I admire your patience and the care of your reponses. It's not that I
disagree with any of your comments, it's that there is a considerably
different tone I would like to suggest as appropriate for this entire round
of discussion. Your note politely suggests that tone.
Please forgive me if I show some fear that its mildness might cause it to
get missed...
Folks -- We are late. We are very late. We can no longer afford to
operate in glacial time frames. The market is in the process of running us
over. This is not 'study' time; it is 'doing' time.
Perhaps folks haven't noticed the daily announcements of proprietary,
web-based security services for conducting commerce?
Internet email (and related) technology is missing assorted features. The
one that is killing its acceptance in the corporate world is security.
Authentication and privacy, adequate for most daily use, can be easily
obtained through techniques far simpler than required by the X.509 path.
So can the non-repudiations, albeit with a third-party participating
directly.
It is time to stop using a "let's think about this further" mode. X.500 is
nine years old. Most Internet technology that is that old is going through
it's third round of production enhancement and deployment. Yet X.500 is
still seeking an initial critical mass.
We need product and we need it now. More imporantly, we need product that
does not require massive installed infrastructure before it achieves
utility.
d/
--------------------
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg Consulting Phone: +1 408 246 8253
675 Spruce Dr. Fax: +1 408 249 6205
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Email:
dcrocker(_at_)mordor(_dot_)stanford(_dot_)edu