RE: XML and canonicalization

At 14:17 99/10/25 -0400, Ed Simon wrote:
 >consider using it for <SignedInfo>.  However,
 >if we expect
 >that a significant number of applicatons will have
 >to come up with their own canonicalization code,
 >then we have to be wary of how complicated the
 >canonicalization process becomes.

To restate this point, the question is how "standardized" (how well does the
spec read, how easy is it to write implementable/interoperable code from it)
will this feature be, and do we need to place its standardization on the
critical path. I feel more confident we can grapple c14n than we can
Xpath/Xptr/XSLT-dereferencing-processing-model in the short term, however I
don't believe either is an absolutely necessary feature that should be
required.

And the feature we are speaking of is I sign an XML document, it goes
through numerous intermediate processors who may re-arrange the namespaces
but otherwise don't change the content I signed, and my signature still
works. This is very useful, but I don't think it is critical since we can
orthogonally serve the community of people that don't need this feature
sooner rather than later.



_________________________________________________________
Joseph Reagle Jr.   
Policy Analyst           mailto:reagle@w3.org
XML-Signature Co-Chair   http://w3.org/People/Reagle/

Received on Monday, 25 October 1999 15:49:22 UTC