publickeyfile draft (was Re: Secure Shell: Milestone Update.)

[Jacob Nevins <jacobn+secsh%chiark.greenend.org.uk@localhost>]

Bill Sommerfeld writes:
> Apr 05          GSSAPI draft ready for last call
> Apr 05          Resurrect and last-call newmodes
> Apr 05          Resurrect and last-call secsh-break
> Apr 05          File transfer draft ready for last call
  [...]
> We have a large number of nearly complete extensions drafts which
> expired while the core drafts were wedged.  Most just require a little
> wordsmithing and process tweaking before they can move forward.  I'd
> like to get those done soon so that we can *really* go inactive.

I notice there's been no mention of the publickeyfile draft. I'm not
aware of anything seriously wrong with this document, although I'm not
intimately familiar with it. Is there sufficient interest to get it
cleaned up for publication?

Skimming through draft-ietf-secsh-publickeyfile-05, the only concern I
immediately have is the unspecified "interim periods" and "transition
periods", such as in the following:

| 3.3  Key File Header
     [...]
|    Existing implementations may not correctly handle unrecognized
|    fields. During a transition period, implementations SHOULD generate
|    key file headers that contain only a Subject field followed by a
|    Comment field.

and

| 3.3.2  Comment Header
     [...]
|    Currently, common practice is to quote the Header-value of the
|    Comment, and some existing implementations fail if these quotes are
|    omitted.
| 
|    Compliant implementations MUST function correctly if the quotes are
|    omitted.
| 
|    During an interim period implementations MAY include the quotes. If
|    the first and last characters of the Header-value are matching
|    quotes, implementations SHOULD remove them before using the value.

Are implementations for which these would cause trouble still worth
humouring, or can these be relegated to historical notes or deleted
entirely?

If not, we need to replace the "interim periods" with something else.