- From: Brian LaMacchia <bal@microsoft.com>
- Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 17:30:20 -0800
- To: <reagle@w3.org>
- Cc: <w3c-ietf-xmldsig@w3.org>
I object to the proposal for including xml:space as an attribute of SignatureProperties and Object for the following reasons: 1) This change introduces new interop requirements that we'd have to test & meet in order to progress to Standard/Recommendation. (Specifically, do applications properly interop if the attribute is xml:space=default or xml:space=preserve.) 2) I'm not convinced that supporting or depending on xml:space is the right way to go. If we need space-removal semantics I believe we should do that with a better, XML Schema-aware canonicalization algorithm. 2a) Related to (2), in the existing two C14N algorithms the presence or absence of an xml:space attribute doesn't actually affect the execution of the algorithm (indeed: per the C14N spec, "All whitespace in character content is retained") so I can't see this change being justified on grounds of affecting the actual signature; the xml:space would instead only be of significance to an app-level semantic that interprets the contents of an Object element. 3) If we were going to put the attribute anywhere, then I believe Joseph's comment is correct that it would be more appropriate for the attribute to go on ext:Foo. (Notice that since dsig:Object does not itself have any significant semantic beyond a mere container, it is the case that in fact doing it this way (on ext:foo) is fully equivalently expressive.) 4) Finally, as the owner of a V1-compliant implementation that has been frozen for months, I must object to any change that could potentially make my implementation non-compliant. So, basically, it's too little and too late. The chance that implementations might become non-compliant at this point, combined with the time it would take to perform new interop testing, is sufficient reason in my opinion to reject this proposal. --bal -----Original Message----- From: Joseph Reagle [mailto:reagle@w3.org] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 1:08 PM To: Rich Salz; w3c-ietf-xmldsig@w3.org Subject: Re: Whitespace On Tuesday 08 January 2002 13:04, Rich Salz wrote: > I believe that the SignatureProperty and Object element definitions > should be modified to allow the xml:space attribute. I'm proposing > those two, because I believe those are the most likely elements within > ds:Signature that will be covered by a signature. Hi Rich, we are on the very cusp (I hope this week) of getting IESG approval and moving forward. Consequently, the only tweaks we've accepted since we entered PR are those that don't upset *any* person, previous concensus, instances, or implementations: just small tweaks that make the spec better in everyone's eyes. To implement your proposal we'd have two options: 1. Add the following to the two element definitions that would then permit xml:space and xml:lang <anyAttribute namespace="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"/> 2. Or to enable xml:space but preclude xml:lang: <xsd:import namespace="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace" schemaLocation="http://www.w3.org/2001/xml.xsd"/> ... <xsd:attribute ref="xml:space" use="optional"/> I don't see either violating my threshold of slipping it in if others think this is a good idea and no one objects. (The first is better IMHO.) However, if you did this, wouldn't this also preserve the whitespace between the ds:Object and the ext:Foo? I'd think that if you're worried about the whitespace in ext:Foo, it should have the xml:space, not necessarily the ds:Object? -- Joseph Reagle Jr. http://www.w3.org/People/Reagle/ W3C Policy Analyst mailto:reagle@w3.org IETF/W3C XML-Signature Co-Chair http://www.w3.org/Signature/ W3C XML Encryption Chair http://www.w3.org/Encryption/2001/
Received on Friday, 11 January 2002 20:30:56 UTC