I think it should be remembered that signed Atom entries *do* make a great deal of sense within the context of the Atom formatted documents -- whatever difficulties that they may cause in the protocol discussion.
One important use-case discussed during the definition of the Atom syntax was that of aggregate or synthetic feeds. (i.e. feeds that are composed of entries taken from more than one other feed). The current syntax allows one to preserve a signed entry in an aggregate feed -- as long as the signed entry had an atom:source element when it was originally signed. If the protocol can't preserve the signature associated with an entry provided by a client, then it would seem that the protocol can't be used to construct an aggregated feed that preserves the integrity of properly signed atom entries extracted from other feeds. That is unfortunate and seems extremely non-optimal. bob wyman
