Ned, I think you read more into what I said than I intended.
However, implementations are required to implement all the options, both
cert-based and non-cert-based. As such, you get exactly what you want out of
this. And so do I -- I want the ability to support customers who don't give a
tiny damn about certs and never will, and for that matter I can also support
customers who demand certs for all uses of PEM.
Your suggestion that all these things be made optional is actually pretty
funny, in that it would almost certainly guarantee that some implementations
would never support the services you require. Our current proposal is that
implementations be required to give you the services you want! I'm actually
opposed to dropping the requirement that all forms be supported, since I think
it will cause big interoperability problems.
Call it my blind side, but it never occurred to me that you or anyone else
would seriously consider offering PEM/MIME without cert support.
Let me put this another way. I see my position as giving you exactly the
services you want in exactly the form you want them. However, I see your
position as being unwilling to let me have the services I know I need, despite
the fact that you are under absolutely no obligation to support or use them.
No, what I was suggesting was that you not force OTHER implementors to
implement the services YOU think you need, but they might not think THEY need
or trheir users need. As it stands now, anyone wishing to support the use of
MIME cum security would be forced to implement everything, whether they wanted
to or not, or develop an entire parallel series of documents. That doesn't seem
to be a very useful way to move forward.
The purpose of having the option would be to at least unstick this discussion
and let you go about your business (which of course you are free to do in any
case).
However, as I do not presently have any plans to go into the software
development business, I am not going to argue this point any further. If there
are other implementors or potential implementors out there, perhaps Jeff
Thompson, Steve Dusse, Rhys Weatherly, Sead Muftic, Jeff Schiller, etc., then I
will let them speak for themselves, pro or con.
Bob
--------------------------------
Robert R. Jueneman
GTE Laboratories
40 Sylvan Road
Waltham, MA 02254
FAX: 1-617-466-2603
Voice: 1-617-466-2820