Re: [Curdle] Time to Review IANA SSH Registries Policies?

[Sean Turner <[e-mail]>]

> On Feb 3, 2021, at 15:11, Salz, Rich <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>>   I’m not currently familiar with the “expert review” process that’s in place for these other registries right now, but (also speaking as an individual) I’d be interested in learning more and would potentially be interested in participating in such a review depending on the time commitment involved.
> 
> See https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8126.html#page-20 for details.
> 
> The IESG appoints the experts, almost always based on the Area Director's recommendations.

We would set up a designated expert (DE) pool that includes a couple of people. There aren’t all that many requests, but it is good to have more than one person in the pool in case they get hit by a piece of space junk. The DEs are appointed by the IESG, and as Rich noted, are almost always based on AD recommendations. Typically, the AD asks the WG chairs because they have a sense of who has the expertise.

IANA has a registry tool that accepts requests (https://www.iana.org/form/protocol-assignment). To make sure we have oversight into what the DEs are doing that tool will shoot the request to a publicly available mailing list, e.g., [e-mail]. The experts can self-manage who reviews the request; sometimes there is an agreement to do round-robin but in my experience it is who gets to it first.

When we write up the I-D that would make this change we can also specify a review period after which the ADs just back in the mix; typically it’s two weeks from request. Likewise, we can also provide some guidance for the DEs and maybe a disclaimer that says the DEs are doing and to not infer anything beyond that. E.g., in TLS some people were touting that they had a registry entry as if it was some kind of endorsement from the WG, when in fact nothing was farther from the truth.

The DEs could also provide updates the chairs at every IETF meeting to highlight the assignments that were made since the last meeting.

spt