RE: Proposed LTANS WG Charter

[Tobias Gondrom <tobias.gondrom@ixos.de>]

Hello Harald,

concerning step two, the part of "notary services" you are mostly right. 
We will have to do some more "investigative work". 

But for step one, concerning the long-term archive for digital signed
documents we already have some detailed ideas with different ways for the
solution. There are already two I-Ds. So the problem is already visible to
various groups. To have a good basis to find the best solution for a
standard we thought we should invest some weeks at the beginning to clarify
together the exact needs and then proceed with and finish the specification.

Protocol could be easy, but I wouldn't bet on it at the moment. Anyway at
least a few things are necessary for such services. The question of the data
structures that are needed and transported for verification will definitely
need a standard to enable interoperability. 

I don't want to dictate business decisions or business models. 
(in fact I am among some of the "guys who provide services" ;-)  )
But what I really think is needed is a standard, that will enable business
for many different business models. 

In many times it is not very important which specification you go, important
is that you have one common standard specification so that the different
vendors (and even competitors) can interoperate. 

Especially in this case this is the key to enable the business.
It is important for the customer. And with this also important for the SVs. 

	Tobias


> <housley@vigilsec.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> > Attached is a proposed charter for a new Working Group.  
> Please let me
> > know if you have any concerns with it.
> 
> In Ted Hardie's terminology, this sounds like an 
> "investigative group" - 
> trying to figure out what the problem is so that we can make 
> protocols that help.
> 
> I see lots of business decisions being made by people who provide these 
> services, which the IETF can't and shouldn't dictate - it's not clear to
me 
> how the balance between specifiying protocols and specifying business 
> models is going to work out here. And the protocol work might be rather 
> small, in the end ("just" reuse some access protocol like WEBDAV, and 
> specify how signature information and transformation history 
> information is stored and signed in the datastore, perhaps).
> 
> But that might be just me worrying.
> 
>                 Harald
>