[OpenID] [xri-comment] My Feedback for XRD Vrsion 1.0

[Peter Williams]

The summary of the subject issue was a high class act. Noone else in 2-3
weeks of discussion had even been able to properly characterize the
techno-politics of the issue at hand. You did so, getting to the heart of
the matter. It disclosed an insider's view of the political process that has
been going on for a year, and discussed that process in positive terms:
trying to make various camps content with a format that can satisfy various
conflicting needs (when profiled). Punting to profile and extension models
is a long standing political out, which brings with it its own issues during
adoption.

I'm not sure anyone could care about an adopting-user's perspective, but I'd
be content now if the IETF I-D showcased how the tradeoffs on subject
"really work" -- by including a signed XRD example, for the host-meta
profile specifically. Then we can see if the tradeoffs over identity models
for resources hold up for enough interesting cases; and we will have a
worked example of subject being used (since its apparently mandatory in
signed XRD).

Let not forget reality. Most implementers implement from the worked examples
of the spec, and view the code as finished when it works fine with the lead
implementation in the commonest flows. Most implementers are NOT software
engineers and do not build  or use complete type libraries that capture all
the tradeoffs, and handle all the edge cases.

Let's see if all the careful compromises and hedges over the difficult
issues of uri identifiers in the subject field hold up, when subject is used
in signed XRD. If you showcase it in signed host-meta and it makes it
through to the RFC, you'll have silenced at least one old (rather ignorant)
cynic.


-----Original Message-----
From: Eran Hammer-Lahav [mailto:eran at hueniverse.com] 
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:33 PM
To: Peter Williams
Cc: general at openid.net
Subject: RE: [OpenID] [xri-comment] My Feedback for XRD Vrsion 1.0

Mr. Williams,

Not sure what I have done to you to deserve such comments.