Re: Nits in current drafts

[Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf%mit.edu@localhost>]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Gutmann <pgut001%cs.auckland.ac.nz@localhost> writes:

    Peter> Ben Harris <bjh21%bjh21.me.uk@localhost> writes:
    >> I've mentioned some of these before, but all of them still
    >> apply to the set of drafts released on Friday.

    Peter> Same here: The OpenPGP portions of section 6.6 still don't
    Peter> provide sufficient information to create an interoperable
    Peter> implementation.  "OpenPGP compatible binary format" for the
    Peter> signature could be almost anything, since OpenPGP has a
    Peter> whole pile of signature components, attributes, and so on.

    Peter> The easiest way to resolve this I think is to require that
    Peter> signatures *only* be in "ssh-xyz format", regardless of the
    Peter> certificate format used (i.e. don't tie the signature
    Peter> format to the key format).  I can't see any good reason for
    Peter> requiring the use of complex non-SSH signature formats just
    Peter> because the key is communicated using a different format,
    Peter> and this would also resolve the problem with the ambiguity
    Peter> of the (now-deleted) X.509 format as well, since the X.509
    Peter> cert format is well-defined, it's only the signature format
    Peter> which is ambiguous.

I would feel uncomfortable with the working group making such a
decision this late in the process.  These drafts are before the IESG.
Ideally the working group should be only need to be resolving specific
discuss comments.

The working group is apparently choosing to make somewhat broader
changes.  That's OK although it will require more review and may delay
publication.

However doing new design work seems inappropriate at this stage in the
process.  If a feature is neither sufficiently designed for
interoperable implementations nor widely implemented, drop that
feature.  You can come back and add it later either in a revision to
the core drafts or in an extension draft.


(My position is somewhat ambiguous here.  I'm the AD for this group
but I am not the shepherd for these documents.)

--Sam