[Pqc] Re: Meeting at IETF 124, or maybe an interim meeting instead

[Flo D <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

Another vote in favour of an in person meeting in Montreal.  I'd argue that the group is doing exactly what it was intended for, and that not having more drafts isn't a failure or a reason not to meet.  The charter says "the WG will provide a standing venue to discuss PQC (operational and engineering) transition issues and experiences to date relevant to work in the IETF" and "the general process of elaboration through documentation will be for issues to be identified and discussed on the mailing list, and presentations made at WG meetings".  I think that the group has been doing a great job of that with presentations about IETF-wide issues and updates on activities like the hackathon.

 I won't reiterate the points Ben and Thom have made below, but I agree with their reasoning for why an interim meeting will not have the same benefits.

Flo
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Ben S3 <ben.s3=[e-mail]> 
Sent: 16 September 2025 07:47
To: Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]>
Cc: pqc <[e-mail]>
Subject: [Pqc] Re: Meeting at IETF 124, or maybe an interim meeting instead

I echo what Thom says.

IMO one of the best things about PQUIP is that it provides a unified space to hear about cross-cutting PQ topics. Previously that’s included overviews of PQ activities in other WGs, or a talk from NIST about their PQ process, or most recently Mike’s presentation about encodings in Madrid which acted as an effective prequel for a discussion in LAMPS. It's one of the few venues where "WG tourism" can actually provide useful information for other WGs. These cross-cutting topics tend to result in productive follow-up conversations, which are harder with interims.

We haven't failed to get useful presentations in the past (sometimes at short notice), and I imagine we’ll be able to fill the slot in Montreal too 😊. 

Best,
Ben

-----Original Message-----
From: Thom Wiggers <[e-mail]> 
Sent: 11 September 2025 08:46
To: Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]>
Cc: pqc <[e-mail]>
Subject: [Pqc] Re: Meeting at IETF 124, or maybe an interim meeting instead

Hi all,

I want to say that I have greatly enjoyed the “forum” and “recap of other PQC activities this week” type presentations that we’ve seen during the last few meetings.  Mike O’s talks and the reports on the hackathon in particular come to my mind.  In an interim, I fear that we would have much less “walk up” audience that could still learn things to take back to their own working groups — one of the things that I feel PQUIP was started for.

As author of the HBS draft, I want to say that it doesn’t really matter to me too much if we had our discussions at an interim instead. On that note, we’re meeting early next week and hope to send an update on the remaining issues / changes that we are considering soon.

Cheers,

Thom  

> Op 10 sep 2025, om 20:12 heeft Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]> het volgende geschreven:
> 
> First off, congrats to the WG on us moving two valuable documents toward the RFC Editor. As you just saw, both draft-ietf-pquip-pqc-engineers and draft-ietf-pquip-hybrid-signature-spectrums have moved out of IESG review and are now in the RFC Editor's queue. They will proceed separately, and because "Hybrid signature spectrums" has references that are still Internet Drafts, it will probably be published much later than "PQC for Engineers".
> 
> The WG is still working on two documents, albeit slowly: "Adapting Constrained Devices for Post-Quantum Cryptography" and "Hash-based Signatures: State and Backup Management". Please continue to review the documents and send comments to the list.
> 
> We are now thinking about the IETF 124 meeting in Montréal. At past IETF meetings, we have had brief updates on drafts that were in or ready for working group last call, as well as presentations about IETF-wide issues with post-quantum algorithm specification and implementation. Our meetings have reasonable but not huge attendance. Scheduling any WG meeting requires a lot of work because overlaps between other WGs which has similar topics or people who need to be in both meetings. Conflict-avoidance is a massive undertaking.
> 
> Because of this, the chairs and AD are considering not meeting at IETF 124 but instead having a 90-minute virtual interim meeting a few weeks before IETF 124. IETF virtual interim meetings are run very similarly to face-to-face WG meetings with full Meetecho support.
> 
> Does anyone feel that we absolutely should meet face to face at IETF 124 instead of having an equivalent virtual interim meeting a few weeks before? We still have nine days to decide, and a discussion here about the pros and cons can help others decide as well.
> 
> --Paul Hoffman
> 
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