Re: making progress

I'm a lurker on ietf-tls, and I don't have any direct stake in the
outcome of the specific suggestions under discussion.  But I feel
obliged to observe:  some of the parties in the discussions have
grumbled elsewhere that IETF standardization takes too long in such a
dynamic marketplace, and that they can't wait for the process to churn
along.  I fear that this WG's failure to achieve something concrete
soon will only provide them with further ammunition and drive them to
throw up their hands, say "we tried", and go their own way.  That will
be bad for the industry.

As a political, rather than technical, gesture, I would urge the WG to
move as quickly as possible on Win Treese's first item:

>  1) Try to come to closure on an updated/fixed specification
>         of SSLv3.0 for the standards track, with no major
>  	  changes

If we (you) can't do that, we (you) will sacrifice credibility and
possibly lose the opportunity to influence the Web security community.

Dave Kristol

P.S.  I usually don't add the default disclaimer, but just to be
clear:  these are my private opinions, and they are not the result of
any discussions with any vendors of Web software.

Received on Monday, 21 October 1996 10:53:27 UTC