[Cbor] Use and development of draft-faltstrom-base45 (was: Re: CBOR in QRcodes)

'Christian Amsüss' <christian@amsuess.com> Fri, 25 June 2021 09:10 UTC

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Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2021 11:10:10 +0200
From: 'Christian Amsüss' <christian@amsuess.com>
To: Doug Ewell <doug@ewellic.org>
Cc: 'Michael Richardson' <mcr+ietf@sandelman.ca>, cbor@ietf.org
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Subject: [Cbor] Use and development of draft-faltstrom-base45 (was: Re: CBOR in QRcodes)
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Hello Doug,
(CC'ing the bse45 authors as the thread is moving there)

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 10:16:43AM -0600, Doug Ewell wrote:
> > base45 (or some enhanced version thereof) does appear useful.
> 
> I'm not sure what the bit in parentheses means. I'm thinking of the
> various "enhanced versions" of base32, base64, and base85, all of
> which are intended to solve some localized problem, and all of which
> add confusion and incompatibility to what should be a straightforward
> conversion. I hope this isn't a suggestion to do something similar to
> base45.

As I understand the base45 mechanism is very recent and not widespread
yet -- it has seen significant use in the digital health certificates
application (thread at [1]), but that was rolled out so fast that little
discussion was had given the time pressure the project is under what
they use is baked[2].

Outside the context of this, the draft has received no pertinent
discussion I could find[3], so I think it's more in the "there is a
draft and the mechanisms can be discussed" stage than in the "There is
an RFC that has become The Word" stage (in which any alterations might
become confusing).

Even if it were,

* given it is aimed at QR code readers but *still* gets trapped in some
  of the URI-but-not-really pitfalls,

* given that the proposed enhancements[4] would make it a base41, base42 or
  base43 and the use in combination with scheme-like dispatch there is
  little chance of confusion,

I think it'd be premature to call for a moratorium (as I'd understand
your comment).

BR
Christian

(with my chair hat off, in case that needs clarification in this context)

[1]: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/cbor/M07MvOOyQlw-0P9i2GYYFd8hSbM/
[2]: https://github.com/ehn-dcc-development/hcert-spec/issues/64#issuecomment-861226115
[3]: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?q=faltstrom-base45
[4]: https://github.com/ehn-dcc-development/hcert-spec/issues/64#issuecomment-860974626

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