You have said it is procedurally wrong for detailed discussion to be
had of v3 certificates wrt MIME/PEM (and PEM), as there is the matter
of recognition of draft work of other stds bodies; and that 1422 would
have to be revised and repositioned in the process to facilitate its
eventual use. Well, shortly the corrigendum will be through the ISO
process, and given PEM explicitely allows the use of 1992 certificates
(which includes all recognised and corrected defects) we have the
additional resources we require to solve some of the deployment
problems the many implementors on this list have exchanged info about
for the last 3 or more years.
There is no nonsense about waiting 12 months, etc. v3 is available
formally within the IETF in 89 days time. you have already admitted
that itll take the IESG 4-6 months to process MIME/PEM; the many
implementors have indicated v3 is wanted immediately upon availability;
so I find your dogmatic proceduralism obstructive.
This is getting very tiresome. You assume that the specifications will make it
through the process in a timely fashion. There is every reason to believe that
this will happen for these specifications. I don't have any direct contact with
the Working Group on which to base such assessments, but Warwick does and he
assures us it all looks good from his perspective.
But beliefs and assumptions are not done deals. It is a know fact that all it
takes is some higher up getting their nose out of joint in the ISO/ITU
community and these specifications may be delayed by months, years, or they may
disappear entirely.
These things have happened with other standards in the past, so please don't
try to tell me that it never happens. If you want a specific example, look at
what happened to the original ISO 10646 specification. ISO 10646 exists, but
the current work is a totally different and completely incompatible
specification than the original. If you want examples of delays you only have
to look as far as the C or FORTRAN 90 standards, which suffered through years
of delays, delays in some cases that only started after the technical work was
substantially complete.
It is extremely unlikely that an update of this sort would ever achieve
sufficient controversial status to have this happen. But strange things can and
do happen in the world of standards.
The IETF has had serious problems in the past with assumptions about the
ability of other standards processes to reach closure and stability. The
standardization of draft material from other standards processes is clearly not
allowed. Period! Full stop!
This is just the way it is, so we had all better learn to live with it.
Nathaniel and I kicked and whined and complained and bitched and moaned and
argued and spat and fought over this on not one but several normative
references to other specifications in MIME that happened to still be in draft
form. And we got absolutely nowhere, and we had to remove every single one of
them from MIME. We got zero sympathy or slack from the IESG on this matter. We
now have no registrations for the ISO-8859-10 character set as a result of
this, and we can't add it to the MIME specification now because of the
"additions reset to proposed" rule. I didn't like it then and I don't like it
now, but my not liking it doesn't change things one iota.
In conclusion, it is not my "obstructive dogmatic proceduralism", as you call
it. I have absolutely no authority here at all. You can write whatever you damn
well feel like writing and this group can propose whatever it feels like
proposing. I have no more voice in this than any other member of the working
group, and I would not oppose a document containing such a reference in any
case. I have already said I approve of the goal here, and I personally only
care about matters of form insofar as they affect our ability to get things
done.
All I have been trying to do is tell you what the potential problems are with
some of the approaches that have been proposed. I have been there before
personally and had these problems and I am trying to save you a load of grief.
If you don't believe me, fine. Its your funeral.
One last point. I have never indicated that it will take the IESG anything like
6 months to process this particular proposal. In fact I have given no
indication at all of how long it will take. I quite frankly do not know how
long it will take, and I would not even hazard a guess without seeing a
completed document. It could take as little as a week or it could take a year,
and part of this is "luck of the draw" in terms of how busy the IESG is with
other matters, what comments are received during IETF last call, how close is
the next teleconference, and so on.
But thanks for the indicators about the forms of proceeding within the
local procedures. I agree its correct to wait for the formal
ratification of the defect and corrigendum process to complete before
proceeding.
I have no problem with this approach long as the MIME/PEM documents are allowed
to proceed independently of v3 certification work. In fact I have proposed it
myself at least three times.
Ned