Stephen Kent writes:
Donald,
From the timestamp on your message it seems you were up pretty late
writing that diatribe. Ypu MAY find that more sleep will result in a
better disposition, no guarantees implied or expressed ;-)!
Steve;
Don may have been more blunt than me (it is perhaps a first to be
around people being more blunt than myself) but I largely agreed with
his comments.
I would like to add that the bulk of the people I spoke to in the PKIX
room at Dallas seemed to be rather miffed at the proceedings. I get
the impression most people were there because they felt that what was
going on was inevitable and that they had to keep up with it, but that
it was not to their tastes. Lots of "ISOheads" and similar grumblings
were audible, before and after. I got the distinct impression the only
reason people were even vaguely supportive of the effort was that no
non-X.509 effort was under way. This is not a recipe for community
enthusiasm.
I'm not entirely an impartial observer, of course -- I mumbled some of
the same things to some people. That doesn't mean, however, that my
observation is wrong.
You may not like it, but you should probably pay attention if you
would like to avoid having PKIX become another PEM working group. I
say this knowing that it might hit a raw nerve, in the hope that you
will take the comment as a constructive one and not as an attempt at
at hurting anyone's feelings.
Finally, the charter of this WG specifies the use of X.509
certificates and so you MAY be right to focus your efforts
elsewhere, gievn your feelings.
I will point out that this charter may result in a second working
group arising doing essentially the same work. You should pay close
attention to wider community feelings if you don't want your efforts
to be wasted.
Perry