Re: OCSP-X vs SCVP

["Phillip H. Griffin" <phil.griffin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Rich Salz wrote:
> 
> > Agreed, we are talking about XML vs DER.
> 
> I don't think so.  I think it's XML "versus" ASN.1 and DER: the whole system.

Well, if you're talking of politics I agree. 
But if you only consider the technical aspects
then XML (markup) is only a textual transfer
syntax and DER is a binary transfer syntax.

> 
> With the advent of XML-Schema, there is now an XML datatype description
> language that supports complex types (struct), constraints, inheritance, etc.
> (It's an interesting combination of pragmatism -- constraints can be expressed
> as Perl regular expressions -- and elegance: an XML schema follows XML syntax
> and is therefore a valid XML document.)

If there were but one XML schema life would 
be easy. But there are many XML schema, and 
more seem to be popping up in various XML
communities.

Currently, there are communities that wish 
to use only XML markup and those that wish to
use XML markup with DTDs (which carry only
the structure component on ASN.1 notation,
but no data type or constraint information).

Then there are those relying on XML-schema
and those betting on some earlier schema
like derivative like BizTalk, and others in
the process of building DT4-DTDs (Data Types
for DTDs), etc.

As for constraint capabilities, ASN.1 has just
adopted a PATTERN constraint, which is used in
X9.68:

DNSName ::= VisibleString (SIZE(1..MAX)) 
               (PATTERN "[A-Za-z0-9 .-]*")

There are several contraints available in ASN.1 
that have no counterpart in XML-schema. And XML
schema is still under development, with notable
changes made just recently to accommodate the 
XMLDSIG efforts.

> I can see that XER is of interest to ASN.1 folks, but I dont' see any real
> interest from the XML development community.  It's useful to perserve existing
> legacy (sic) ASN.1 definitions, but XML folks who want to describe data will
> use DTD's and schema's.  (If only because the specifications are free.)  I
> strongly believe the XML community will not enlarge the ASN.1 community.
>         /r$

Agreed. Free specifications are an important 
consideration. The X.500 Group and the ASN.1 
group are both working to have the current 
ASN.1 specifications made free. Of course, 
the ones that are being relied upon by the 
IETF are already freely available.

Phil
----
Phillip H. Griffin      Griffin Consulting
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