Compatibility

[Werner Koch]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2000, L. Sassaman wrote:

> I was not judging the particular case of not including IDEA and RSA. In

It is perfectly okay not to include those algorithms.  The IETF
prefers unpatened algorithms if it can be done at all and one of the
reasons why we have this whole OpenPGP think, is that it now allows
free usage of a protocol.

> fact, the modules almost make up for it (the RSA module doesn't permit key
> generation, I don't believe). But I was just pointing out that SHOULD

And with a good reason.  2 years back most folks agredd on that RSA is
a bad thing.  I remember that Phil called my on the phone to make sure
that GnuPG will not switch to RSA!

Because it sometimes makes sense to create RSA keys, GnuPG will have
this feature on Sep 20th.

> If the WG assigned packet 17 to something else, then there would be a
> problem. As it is now, Packet 17 is effectively assigned to the
> Photo-ID; it just isn't official. I hope the WG makes it so, as the

That is the reason why there are these experimental/private packet
numbers.

These whole compatibilty story to PGP remembers me a bit of the strategy
other (big) verndors are driving.  Take a standard, add some nice little
gadget which is not covered by the standard and claim that you use the new
Standard.  Microsoft did this recently with Kerberos.

BTW, does PGP 6,7 or whatever now create v4 signature packets or does GnuPG
still need the --force-v3-sigs option? 


   Werner


p.s. This discussion should be done on the OpenPGP ML.

-- 
Werner Koch				OpenPGP key 621CC013
OpenIT GmbH                             tel +49 211 239577-0
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