RE: proposed addition to application/pkcs7-mime smime parameter

["Blake Ramsdell" <[e-mail]>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] 
> [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Rohan Mahy
> Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 7:59 PM
> To: Blake Ramsdell
> Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail]
> Subject: proposed addition to application/pkcs7-mime smime parameter
> 
> I have included some proposed text to add the other CMS types to the 
> smime-type mime parameter.  Alternatively a new cms-type mime 
> parameter 
> could be defined, but this seems a but pedantic to me.

We are in a strange situation here, and I'd like to get feedback on
this.  One side of me says that the "application/pkcs7-mime" means "MIME
packaged in PKCS #7 (which then became CMS) for the purpose of moving
around secured MIME entities".  I don't know if it's a better idea to a)
overload the application/pkcs7-mime type to mean "CMS, possibly not
wrapped in MIME", or b) introduce application/cms in a separate draft,
along with a cms-type parameter that explains the inner type.

I know that there was much discussion about application/xml in a similar
context, and I don't know if there's anything we can learn from that in
order to resolve this.  It seems that the application/xml semantic would
be very similar to the application/cms semantic, but I may not
understand it correctly.

I'm going to release 2633bis-05 shortly, and if there's no discussion on
this topic I'm not going to include anything in that draft.  If it's
important, we should work through it.

Blake