RE: charter revisions

[Stephen Kent <kent@xxxxxxx>]

Folks,

There seems to be some misunderstanding about the future of PKIX, 
that has arisen as a side effect of the charter discussions.

PKIX is far from the longest lived WG, or even the longest lived 
security WG, as some comments have suggested.  Check out the lifetime 
of CAT for example.

Neither co-chair has suggested that they are running out of energy, 
although that characterization was made about the WG.

In addition to new work items, we have a long term commitment to 
progressing our current, standards track RFCs through to full 
standard status, and we anticipate continuing interactions with the 
X.509 committee as the base standards that we profile continue to 
evolve.  We have had very good interactions with the X.509 committee 
members over the years; both groups have benefited from the give and 
take.

Finally, people are always free to pursue PKI-related activities in 
other fora, e.g., industry consortia.  However, these other fora 
usually do not operate in the same fashion as an IETF WG, e.g., they 
have different agendas, different "membership" requirements, and one 
ought not expect the output to be the same.  Thus I do not anticipate 
PKIX ceding its role in this arena to such fora.

Steve