Re: [secdir] [Cfrg] Time to recharter CFRG as a working group? Was: Re: ISE seeks help with some crypto drafts

[denis bider <[e-mail]>]

> That's actually not what happens - new work on old
> protocols has to go through the chartering process,
> which is, in practice, more rigorous than rechartering
> and tends, in my experience, to produce more focused
> results.  The IETF produces a pretty good number of
> -bis documents and extensions through the working
> group process.

You are pointing out the lucky situations where that happens, I'm pointing
out the unlucky ones where it doesn't.

SSH is full of underdocumented, partly functional custom extensions (to
cryptography, compression, SFTP, port forwarding, host key synchronization,
VPN, and more), most of which *could* be better designed, better documented
and standardized - if only there was a continuing forum and people did not
have to go through this "rigorous" chartering process.

You point out the handful of documents produced as a success. I point out a
mountain of documents NOT produced, problems NOT solved, discussions NOT
had as a failure.

This same situation now arises in the context of CFRG, which would make
sense as a permanent WG. But nope, that option has to not be available.


On Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 8:53 PM Melinda Shore <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> On 3/17/19 5:28 PM, denis bider wrote:
> > When
> > people want to introduce extensions, there's no longer anywhere to turn
> > to. So development of extensions happens haphazardly, without
> > discussion, without feedback, without coordination.
>
> That's actually not what happens - new work on old
> protocols has to go through the chartering process, which
> is, in practice, more rigorous than rechartering and tends,
> in my experience, to produce more focused results.  The
> IETF produces a pretty good number of -bis documents and
> extensions through the working group process.  (Currently
> we've got groups like lamps, curdle, kitten, and so on
> updating old standards.)
>
> At any rate, I'd like to see CFRG remain where it is, in
> part because of structural reasons but mostly because it's
> been productive and useful and it's not clear that there's
> any practical advantage to changing it to an IETF working
> group, while there are several clear disadvantages (I think
> that potentially removing incentives for participation by
> academics is a huge deal, myself).
>
> Melinda
>
> --
> Melinda Shore
> [e-mail]
>
> Software longa, hardware brevis
>