Re: Mandatory MIME security

Paul,


Thursday, November 7, 2002, 11:19:49 AM, you wrote:
Paul> Whoops, sorry. I took the meaning of your draft to say that you
Paul> wanted the IETF to do something.

The "A MODEST PROPOSAL" section suggests four things to do.


Paul> OK. But we disagree about what the market is. The market of protocol
Paul> developers have leaned strongly towards PKIX and away from OpenPGP 
Paul> authentication.

Silly me. I keep thinking that markets are defined by customers and users,
not providers. The massive lack of user adoption of either technology is all
that really matters.

I thought we cared more about what users will use than what makes developers
happy.  (I said more. That doesn't mean ignore developers, it means that we
should keep our priorities straight.)


>>Therefore having the IETF try to choose one is both arbitrary and contrary.

Paul> Here, we disagree. The IETF can choose one based on what the vendors 
Paul> who will have to implement the standard want.

Please review the history of OSI.  It is exactly this philosophy that was
operating for the 15 years of that failed effort.

Again, silly me.  I thought paid attention to use of technology, not just
its implementation.  (There are plenty of other standards groups that do an
excellent job following the philosophy you have described.  And I thought
the IETF had a well-established pattern of using different, and more
pragmatic, criteria.)


>>There is no clear basis for making a global choice for one of them.  And
>>there is clear market feedback that neither is preferred by a rough
>>consensus of that market.

Paul> If you mean "email users" as the market, we definitely agree. If you 
Paul> mean "the protocols that need to have security", we don't agree.

Fine.

Please cite the multi-million user open (no pair-wise coordination) market
that has adopted and is using one of these.

d/
-- 
 Dave Crocker  <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
 TribalWise <http://www.tribalwise.com>
 t +1.408.246.8253; f +1.408.850.1850

Received on Thursday, 7 November 2002 14:33:51 UTC