[Gnu-arch-users] Re: Common merge request format

[Michael Poole]

Robin Green <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, Apr 12, 2004 at 06:11:26PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
>> > OK, I admit, I picked the wrong filetype. It seems .aexpk is the right one.
>> 
>> Still not seeing what this is supposed to accomplish...
>
> In the absence of a global authoritative keyserver, it is a convenient way
> to transmit a public key. I wouldn't have thought of it if jblack hadn't
> asked me for a keyserver name and key ID so he could look up my public key.
> What a rigmarole! Let's just insert headers pointing to a direct download for
> our keys. Much simpler!

Slightly simpler and much less useful.  With a keyserver, you can
store a web of trust in one place.  With URLS to exported keys, you
cannot.  There are not so many keyservers that selecting one will
cause problems, and they are more likely to work well (both in terms
of features and ease of use) with OpenPGP implementations than will a
URL to an exported key.

Michael Poole