Re: FW: New Liaison Statement, "Liaison to IETF on the removal of upper bound in X.509"

[Steven Legg <[e-mail]>]

Paul,

Paul Hoffman wrote:
> 
> It seems like there are two questions here:
> 
> - Do we object to the ITU making the upper bound on DirectoryString 
> optional

They've been optional since the second edition of X.500. The defect
resolution will make that clearer, as well as steering away from
any specific suggestions for the upper bounds.

> 
> - Should we do anything to draft-ietf-pkix-rfc3280bis to reflect that
> 
> The answer to the first should be "no, we don't". Russ gave a list that 
> shows the the ITU has a *long* way to go before it gets rid of the silly 
> maximum lengths in X.509.

The defect resolution will throw them all out at the same time.

> 
> For me, the answer to the second question is "no" because of the large 
> number of other silly limitations, most notably CommonName being 64 
> characters.

Aren't these other silly limitations inherited from the upper bounds
in X.500 ? Alignment with X.500 and LDAP would mean removing these
limitations as well.

Regards,
Steven

> 
> --Paul Hoffman, Director
> --VPN Consortium
>