[OGSA-AUTHZ] The pending OGSA-AuthZ documents and the time line for completion

[David Groep]

Dear AuthZ working group,

Following the Standard Council meeting at OGF26, and given the progress
on the four documents that have come out of public comment last year,
would want to strongly encourage the completion of the pending documents
and incorporation of the comments. Considering the state of the documents
that have come out of public comment, and having seen the recent agreement
on the SAML Credential Retrieval document, we hope that it will be possible
within the next 30 days to complete there and submit the updated versions
to the Editor.

Given that a lot of work has already gone in to it, a minimal addressing of
the Comments and then publishing it would be best. When needed, leaving out
contentious bits or maybe even just publish a subset of the docs would
already be a Good Thing (although for the SAML doc that will surely not
be needed).

However, for those documents on which there is no progress, the Standard
Council would draw the docs out of the editor pipe line after these 30 days.
The documents themselves, as well as the comments and discussion, will of
course remain available, and it would just mean that a future publication
has to go through the public comment phase again. However, that is not an
insurmountable barrier per-se. A new round could then even generate better
comments, given that the area in general evolves as well.

Of course, I would much prefer publication, and appreciate very much
the efforts of Tom and Valerio to complete the SAML doc! Also the Standard
Council and Chris would like the docs published and recognised.
At the same time, we hope for your understanding: having docs in the
pipeline just sit there doesn't do anybody any good.


As for the VOMS Certificate Format document: it has been circulated to the
list and I've seen no comments on it.  This probably means it's a good and
complete description of the format (it is as far as I can see), and given
the interest in this document from, e.g., the Production Grid Infrastructures
(PGI) working group, I'll submit this one to the Editor as an Informaitonal
document for the obligatory 30-day public comment period.

	Best regards,
	David Groep.

-- 
David Groep

** Nikhef, Dutch National Institute for Sub-atomic Physics,PDP/Grid group **
** Room: H1.56 Phone: +31 20 5922179, PObox 41882, NL-1009DB Amsterdam NL **