Compatibility

[L. Sassaman]

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On Fri, 14 Apr 2000, Frank Tobin wrote:

> Three are currently two major things which break compatibility:
> encumbering patents, and PGP.

That's a silly statement.
 
> RSA and IDEA are not supported by default in GnuPG because they are not
> free algorithms.  These are SHOULD's in the OpenPGP specifiction.  RSA
> will likely be supported when the patent runs out this fall.  IDEA's
> patent does not run out for several years.

Not following SHOULDs, unless there is a very good reason, is bad. 
 
> NAI's PGP breaks the OpenPGP specifiction with it's new packets such as
> the photo-id.  I can see that NAI wants to further extend the powers of
> PGP, and that is fine with me; however, users should be aware that there
> is an open standard with free implementations which anyone can use, and
> that not abiding by this standard has a good chance of alienating those
> who abide by it.

Photo-ID and what else? Nothing. And the photo ID breaks nothing,
either. Packet 17 is unused. If it were assigned to something else, and
there was a conflict there, then things would be broken. The fact is the
WG was told about the photo ID, and in my opinion should have made
allowances for it. (The proposal was for a "biometric data packet" that
could contain things like photos, fingerprints, voice-prints, etc.)

And, if you follow the suggestion of the draft:

       However, if
       an implementation wishes to be compatible with such keys, the
       packet may be considered to be a user id packet with opaque
       contents.

(As GnuPG does, I believe -- or does it just trim them from the key?), PGP
keys play happiliy with GnuPG.


- --Len.

__

L. Sassaman

System Administrator                |  "All of the chaos
Technology Consultant               |   Makes perfect sense..."
icq.. 10735603                      |
pgp.. finger://ns.quickie.net/rabbi |              --Joe Diffie



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