Subject: [Gen-art] gen-art review of draft-ietf-nea-pa-tnc-04

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:33:44 -0400

I have been selected as the General Area Review Team (Gen-ART)
reviewer for this draft (for background on Gen-ART, please see
http://www.alvestrand.no/ietf/gen/art/gen-art-FAQ.html).

Please wait for direction from your document shepherd
or AD before posting a new version of the draft.

Document: draft-ietf-nea-pa-tnc-04
Reviewer: Scott Brim
Review Date: Jun 17, 2009

Summary: This draft is ready for publication as a Proposed Standard.

Comments:

Because this draft is primarily meant to clone a standard from outside
of the IETF, I have essentially nothing to say about the content.  It
seems internally consistent, but I cannot compare it to the original.

However, a major goal is to "avoid the development of multiple
incompatible standards in this area", and every time you have multiple
authoritative copies of something you run the risk of divergence.  It
would be great if the protocol specification sections were not published
at all and people were referred to the base standard!  That runs into
IETF procedural mud, so instead I suggest an explicit statement along
the lines of:

  This document is not authoritative on the protocol described.  The
  authoritative document is, and will be, the Trusted Computing Group
  standard [6].

Thoughts?

Scott

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From: kaushik <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:14:02 -0700

Hi Scott,

The IETF specification is authoritative as far as the PA & PB protocols
defined by the NEA WG since it represents work done by the IETF community on
the -00 version of the specification that was submitted by TNC. Contributors
to the PA & PB protocols in the NEA-WG include individuals who are not part
of TNC. TNC has decided to closely track the IETF specification to avoid
incompatibilities.

Regards,
 kaushik

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:04:27 -0400

> of TNC. TNC has decided to closely track the IETF specification to avoid

OK, in that case the IETF spec is authoritative, but the draft says

  In order to avoid the development of multiple incompatible standards
  in this area, the TCG offered several of its TNC standards to the IETF
  as candidates for standardization in the IETF also.  This document is
  one of those standards, known in the IETF as PA-TNC and in the TCG as
  IF-M 1.0.  PA-TNC and IF-M 1.0 are equivalent.

Maybe I misunderstood the wording.  The way I read it, the TCG offered
its standards for standardization in the IETF "also" ("also" means both
organizations work on it) and this document "is" one of those standards
(meaning this document does not include further development, it simply
"is" what was given to the IETF).

Are you saying that when they "offered" their standard, they also handed
over authority for its further development?  That would be fine.
organizations working on a single protocol, and I always want one of
them to clearly "hold the pen".  Even when one is "closely tracking" the
other, parallel standards can lead to ambiguities in how certain fields
are used, for example.  It's better to have one authority, and one
document.  Anyway, as I said I believe it's ready for standardization,
but I hope you take steps to avoid future ambiguity.

Thanks ... Scott