LDAP/X.500 Alignment

["Slone, Skip" <skip.slone@lmco.com>]

At the San Diego meeting, a new X.500-initiated work item on "maximizing
alignment between LDAP and X.500" was briefly introduced to the ldapext WG.
The philosophy behind this work is one of removing barriers  -- barriers to
LDAP/X.500 interoperability, and barriers to implemention resulting from
X.500's OSI legacy.  The goal of this work is to combine the collective
talents of LDAP and X.500 experts in a way that facilitates the development
of directory solutions that are both compelling and pragmatic. 

The document describing this work can be found at
ftp://ftp.bull.com/pub/OSIdirectory/Orlando2000Output/LDAPalignmentWD.pdf. 

The document contains about four pages of real content, and the major
section headers are as follows:
  - General Philosophy
  - Removal of Barriers
  - Distributed Operations
  - Related Entries
  - Name Resolution
  - Protocol / Presentation Interoperability
  - Schema
  - Replication and Metadirectory
  - Security
  - New Functionality

I will be attending the X.500 group's upcoming meeting the week of January
29, and would welcome the perspective of members of this group. I invite
interested parties to take a look at this document and to share your
thoughts with me during the time remaining before the X.500 meeting. I also
plan to attend the IETF meeting in Minneapolis, where I should be available
to discuss the latest developments from the X.500 group's perspective. 

Because the topic list covers a wide range, the resulting work is likely to
span multiple LDAP-related WGs. Accordingly, I am sending this initial
message to several WG lists. However, to minimize cross-postings, I am
sending the initial message separately to each of the various lists in hope
that any ensuing discussions can be contained within the relevant group.

Thanks,

 -- Skip Slone