a heretical question about LDAP in general

[Tom Spindler <dogcow@redback.com>]

Have there ever been any proposals to simplify LDAP? That is,
to make the actual protocol octet-based rather than relying on
ASN.1 and BER? And possibly have a standard simplified API as
well? (I ask, because in all honesty, I only see about 10 API
calls that are ever used in any LDAP-based programs. Of course,
I'm not also dealing with source from people who want to assign
OIDs to all schema, either.)

I found it "interesting" that the hardcover LDAP book by the ex-
umich folks almost solely talks about the API rather than the
protocol itself - but who really WANTS to talk about ASN.1?

(Yeah, I know that this question more properly belongs on one of
the IETF lists, but I figured that a fair bit of those folks are
already here.)