Subject: RE: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-pkix-rfc2510bis-03.txt (and rfc2511bis- 01.txt)

From: Carlisle Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 14:31:54 -0500

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion.

These specs have undergone interop testing among half a dozen or more
(perhaps 10) independent implementations for over a year and a half now.
Some of the implementors use available ASN.1 compilers; others, perhaps, are
using hand-coding.  But in any case, I've been assuming that if there were
problems with the syntax it would have been brought to my attention long
before now.  It looks like either no one has encountered any problems, or no
one has bothered mentioning it to me.

If you (or anyone else reading this) would like to run the modules through a
syntax checker and give me a list of the necessary changes, I'd be happy to
incorporate them.  My sense, however, from what you've listed below, is that
the changes required will be sufficiently minor that they can all be taken
care of during the last "48 HOURS NOTICE" editing cleanup window from the
RFC Editor.  Therefore, I see no reason to hold up progression of either of
these documents.

Carlisle.

> ----------
> From: 	Phillip H. Griffin[SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Reply To: 	[email-masked]
> Sent: 	Friday, March 02, 2001 12:51 PM
> To: 	Carlisle Adams
> Cc: 	[email-masked]; [email-masked]'
> Subject: 	Re: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-pkix-rfc2510bis-03.txt (and
> rfc2511bis-01.txt)
> 
> Petty perhaps, but it might be nice to review 
> this ASN.1 rigorously before any progression.
> 
> Just browsing through the -03 version I found 
> some busted notation. The named integer values
> "CMP1999(1), CMP2000(2)" should begin with lower
> case letters.
> 
> And "implicitConfirm ::= {id-it 13}" should be
> "implicitConfirm OBJECT IDNETIFIER ::= {id-it 13}"
> and "implicitConfirmValue ::= NULL" is invalid as
> well.
> 
> A good going over by an automated syntax checker 
> tool such as one of the freely available ones at 
> http://www.oss.com/products/syntax1.html or listed on
> http://asn1.elibel.tm.fr/en/links/index.htm#tools
> would probably find some things that I missed by eye.
>

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 14:33:17 -0500

At 2:31 PM -0500 3/2/01, Carlisle Adams wrote:
>If you (or anyone else reading this) would like to run the modules 
>through a syntax checker and give me a list of the necessary 
>changes, I'd be happy to incorporate them.  My sense, however, from 
>what you've listed below, is that the changes required will be 
>sufficiently minor that they can all be taken care of during the 
>last "48 HOURS NOTICE" editing cleanup window from the RFC Editor. 
>Therefore, I see no reason to hold up progression of either of these 
>documents.

Any change to any code in a document must be made before the document 
is sent to the RFC Editor. If any code is discovered to need changing 
after that time, the RFC Editor should kick it back to the IESG, who 
should ask the authors to fix it.

It is Very Bad to change anything other than minor editorial 
statements during the author review, or to even believe that all the 
authors will be around for the review.

Carlisle: I take it from your comments that you don't think that any 
of Phil's suggestions need to be implemented because no one tripped 
over them. Is that correct? If so, it's fine that we don't make the 
changes, but that is *quite* different than changing them after 
everyone has used the current code for testing.

Phil: do you have evidence that any ASN.1 compiler other than the one 
you listed has problems with the code as it stands now?

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium