Subject: RE: ;binary and userCertificate (Was: Private email ...)

From: "Ramsay, Ron" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 16:13:24 +1100

I can't see how that can work. They will be removed, creating a proposed
standard with less functionality, which is OK. The standard no longer
applies, so certificates can go their own way?

-----Original Message-----
From: Kurt D. Zeilenga [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, 21 February 2002 16:09
To: Ramsay, Ron
Cc: Christopher Oliva; LDAP BIS
Subject: RE: ;binary and userCertificate (Was: Private email ...)

At 06:58 PM 2002-02-20, Ramsay, Ron wrote:
>Once certificates are removed for the base spec, these arguments are moot.

Yes, but they are not moot for an I-D replacing portions of
an Proposed Standard.

Kurt

---

From: "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:56:53 -0800

At 09:13 PM 2002-02-20, Ramsay, Ron wrote:
>standard with less functionality, which is OK.

For clarity,

The certificate schema will be split out from the "core" specification.
The intent is for the "core" to progress to Draft Standard directly.
The certificate schema specification, due to addition of matching
rules and possibly other changes, will be issued at a Proposed
Standard.  If issued prior to the revised "core" specification,
this I-D would update RFC 2252 and RFC 2256.  If issued after,
this I-D would extend the revised "core" specification.

>The standard no longer applies, so certificates can go their own way?

Sure, you can throw out the old specification and start over.
I don't believe that is warranted in this case.

Kurt

---

From: [email-masked] (Mark C Smith)
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 10:20:56 -0500

Kurt D. Zeilenga wrote:

> I don't believe that is warranted in this case.

I agree with Kurt. But clearly there are at least two points of view:

(1) Those who believe ;binary was a bad idea with respect to certificate 
attributes (I'll leave other uses of ;binary out of this discussion). 
The introduction of ;binary caused more interoperability problems than 
it solved.

(2) Those who believe ;binary was a useful idea with respect to 
certificate attributes. It allowed people to build standards compliant 
LDAPv3 clients and servers that interoperate in this area.

Now, I have never heard of any interoperability problems that involve an 
LDAPv3 client talking to an LDAPv3 server to search for, retrieve, or 
modify certificate attributes. In all operations, ;binary is used in the 
AttributeDescription. There is no ambiguity. Everyone is happy.

Can someone who is subscribes to (1) provide an example of an 
interoperability problem that does not involve LDAPv2?  If not, then the 
real question is whether we care about LDAPv2 any longer. I do not.

-Mark Smith
  Netscape