Tim,
I certainly agree that no one has the time to read all of 3280bis
these days, and that it is important to provide the set of changes in
a straightforward manner. However, it was very difficult to convey
the complete context of the proposed changes without showing how they
would impact the current text. Describing the changes out of
context and rolling them in later would surely result in repetitive
debates, and I personally don't see the value in arguing every issue
twice. To ensure that the complete impact of all changes were
accurately conveyed, we felt the need to create a 3280bis draft.
To facilitate an efficient review by WG members that are already
familiar with 3280, the editor also has provided an html diff file
that shows all changes from 3280 to 3280bis. As noted earlier on
list, this file is available at
http://csrc.nist.gov/pki/documents/PKIX/rfc3280todraft3280bis-00_diff.html
The html diff file clearly identifies every change (deletions are in
red and strikethrough, insertions are in green) so no one should have
to read the entire document or spend cycles figuring out which
sections were, or were not, modified.
This still does not solve the concern.
We need a short document that we can print to review in the train or
in the plane. I cannot handle a 100 pages document.
Please save our trees (since trees are transformed into paper).
.. but more important, what we need is a summary of all the change
requests and, even more important, how they have been addressed.
A change document will not mention the comments that have been discarded.
Denis