Ned
Frankly, I question your ability to assess the editing process in this way. You
have been asked at least once, in response to general comments you made, to
provide specific feedback about what's right and what's wrong in these
documents. You have done nothing along these lines to the best of my knowledge.
I did not mean to cast dispersions on the editors. You and Jim and have done
an admirable job in responding to the many skeptics on the list (myself
included). By editing process I meant the circular debate we are involved in
on this list that is directed at improving the specification. I know that the
IETF is not supposed to vote, but we really need the equivalent of a Robert's
Rules of Order for e-mail based meetings. For example, the "motions" allow a
group to focus on a specific course of action.
My main frustration still comes from the lack of a clear definition of PEM-MIME
requirements. Specific comments on a document are quite difficult when there
is not full agreement on the requirements.
I still have some basic disagreements with the requirements that PEM-MIME
appears to be written towards. Specifically, the creation of the new
identifiers (ASCII, email, etc.) do not seem to be necessary given the success
of PGP. I see no reason to bundle new PGP-like features into the specification
when PGP is already a defacto standard. There is no problem with PGP competing
with a separate more structured PEM. There are different market requirements
that drive implementations. In the current PEM-MIME specification the PGP-like
features have been added without PGP interoperability, without the full PGP
trust model, and without the clarity of PGP naming conventions.
Separate from my disagreements with the goals of the specification, I do have
specific issues with the mechanisms that will be sent in a separate e-mail note.
Paul