Subject: An icky compromise for the BER issue

From: [email-masked] (Sam Hartman)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:29:39 -0400 (EDT)

It seems we have three options:

1) Force cable labs to either implement BER or fail to comply with the
   spec.

2)  Force KDC implementers to meet Cable Labs's needs even if that
    means not supporting pkinit at all on some platforms. 

3) Find a compromise.

Basically the compromise kind of inherently needs to allow for
non-interoperability.  How big of a problem is that though?  Consider
that you can write a client that can interop with any KDC.  You can
write a KDC that can interop with any client.  Consider also that some
vendors have chosen to implement DH and others have chosen to
implement RSA.  We already have a similar level on non-interop.

We could choose to make send DER a SHOULD and decode BER a SHOULD.  It
acknowledges the interop reality we seem to have.

If we make that decision, we'll need to talk to our AD; I suspect this
will be a hard sell to the IESG.

--Sam

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From: Richard Ashford <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 20:54:08 -0400

For the sake of interoperability I'd say force cable labs to implement
BER or fall short of specfications.

-- Rich

-- 
                                 ---------------------------
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
                                                                  --
George Orwell ["1984"]