Subject: Fwd: I-D Action:draft-hoffman-cms-new-asn1-00.txt

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 12:59:11 -0800

Greetings again. Jim Schaad and I have created a draft that contains 
revised ASN.1 modules for some of the standards-track RFCs for 
S/MIME. These modules conform to ASN.1 2002. We want to see if people 
are interested in bringing the S/MIME specs up to the new ASN.1 now 
that there is an open source, freeware ASN.1 compiler for ASN.1 2002, 
a2c (see <http://code.google.com/p/a2c/>).

This is definitely a first draft. There is a list of issues that we 
want to address, and we expect more issues to come up in the WG. 
Please review the draft and let us know what you think. FWIW, there 
is a parallel draft for PKIX.

>A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts 
>directories.
>
>	Title           : New ASN.1 Modules for CMS and S/MIME
>	Author(s)       : P. Hoffman, J. Schaad
>	Filename        : draft-hoffman-cms-new-asn1-00.txt
>	Pages           : 32
>	Date            : 2007-11-08
>
>The Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) format, and many associated
>formats, are expressed using ASN.1.  The current ASN.1 modules
>conform to the 1988 version of ASN.1.  This document updates those
>ASN.1 modules to conform to the 2002 version of ASN.1.  There are no
>bits-on-the-wire changes to any of the formats; this is simply a
>change to the syntax.
>
>A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
>http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-hoffman-cms-new-asn1-00.txt

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Turner, Sean P." <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 21:13:33 -0500

I am interested in moving the specs up to the later ASN.1 version.

spt  

>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email-masked] 
>[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Paul Hoffman
>Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 3:59 PM
>To: [email-masked]
>Subject: Fwd: I-D Action:draft-hoffman-cms-new-asn1-00.txt
>
>
>Greetings again. Jim Schaad and I have created a draft that 
>contains revised ASN.1 modules for some of the standards-track 
>RFCs for S/MIME. These modules conform to ASN.1 2002. We want 
>to see if people are interested in bringing the S/MIME specs 
>up to the new ASN.1 now that there is an open source, freeware 
>ASN.1 compiler for ASN.1 2002, a2c (see 
><http://code.google.com/p/a2c/>).
>
>This is definitely a first draft. There is a list of issues 
>that we want to address, and we expect more issues to come up 
>in the WG. 
>Please review the draft and let us know what you think. FWIW, 
>there is a parallel draft for PKIX.
>
>>formats, are expressed using ASN.1.  The current ASN.1 
>modules conform 
>>to the 1988 version of ASN.1.  This document updates those
>>bits-on-the-wire changes to any of the formats; this is 
>simply a change 
>>to the syntax.
>>

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:07:16 +0100

The initiative seems to be a good idea.

To be able to use these ASN.1 modules in free software, a license to
grant the necessary rights is needed.  (As far as I understand, RFC 3978
is not sufficient, see [1].)  After verifying that the ownership of the
contribution allows it, please consider adding a note (possibly the one
discussed in section 3 of [2]) or somehow release the modules under a
liberal license outside of the IETF process.

Thanks,
Simon

[1] http://wiki.debian.org/NonFreeIETFDocuments

[2] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-josefsson-free-standards-howto-01

Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]> writes:

> want to address, and we expect more issues to come up in the
> WG. Please review the draft and let us know what you think. FWIW,

---

From: "Kemp, David P." <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 09:22:47 -0500

Simon,

Perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of [1]:

"Dear Author,

The Debian GNU/Linux distribution wishes to incorporate the
IETF RFC xxxx as part of its distribution, and to allow
users to develop, modify and evolve the document."

but it sounds like a request to keep the name "IETF RFC xxxx"
while modifying the content.  This is, of course, completely
contrary to the IETF configuration management process where
RFCs are an archival document series, and no changes are
permitted once an RFC is issued.

Perhaps Debian should align its process with that of the
IETF, requesting permission to create derivative documents
provided that attribution is maintained, and requiring
that any derivative works DO NOT claim to be IETF RFCs.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Simon Josefsson
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 6:07 AM
To: Paul Hoffman
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Fwd: I-D Action:draft-hoffman-cms-new-asn1-00.txt

Thanks,
Simon

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 06:41:16 -0800

Wait wait wait!

The S/MIME WG mailing list is *not* the place for the discussion of 
how the IETF and/or GNU process should work; the IPR WG mailing list 
is.

Simon made a request (that we modify the drafts to make him believe 
that he can use the contents there). We are considering doing so. 
However, the "how" part is not for this mailing list.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: "Turner, Sean P." <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:55:35 -0500

We should add ASN.1 from RFC3274 - id-compressed-data.

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:11:14 -0800

>We should add ASN.1 from RFC3274 - id-compressed-data.

Probably true, and there are a pile of others that might be 
appropriate as well.

One thought is to make this eventual RFC a repository of all 
standards-track CMS and S/MIME modules, even those that don't need to 
be updated for the 2002 syntax. That gives developers a single place 
to go for all ASN.1 modules, and maybe remind them of standards-track 
RFCs that they have forgotten but should pay attention to.

A different thought would be to make it a repository of just the ones 
that need to be updated. In this scenario, we could still have a list 
of CMS and S/MIME modules not included because they didn't need to 
be; that could serve as an equivalent reminder.

How do people here feel about these alternatives?

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium