PKCS#11 support for gpg-agent

[Werner Koch]

On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 17:01:04 +0300, Alon Bar-Lev said:

> The disclaimer at http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2133 states

Its is not about the protocol but about the licenses incompatibility
between Mozilla and GPL applications.  AFAIK, not everything in
Mozilla has the option to be used under the GPL.

> Since if there is none, I don't see any reason why every project
> should implement its own standard of smartcard structure.

Because pkcs#11 is a standard to let two proprietary applications work
together - that is the whole reason for that complex and very limited
beast.

> If there will be (In the future) GPLed smartcard, it should also
> support PKCS#11 standard... So standard application will work...

Write one; it is not hard.  Or ask soneone to write it. 

> I am calling this proprietary... You cannot use keys and certificates

> that were enrolled for other application. This makes the use of gpg

> and smartcard very difficult to manage.

Nope.  It is not different than with any other smartcard.  The
compatibility is just on another level.

> Can you please reconsider the PKCS#11 support, without

> a new agent branch?

Ask me for a quote.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner