[TLS] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Proposed Text on hybrid vs non-hybrid | Re: WG Last Call: draft-ietf-tls-mlkem-05 (Ends 2026-02-27)

[Paul Wouters <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, 3 Mar 2026, Watson Ladd wrote:

[ speaking as (tired) individual only ]

> On Tue, Mar 3, 2026, 12:58 PM Andrei Popov <[e-mail]> wrote:

>  *  What does an RFC do here?
> This has been brought up on the thread multiple times. SW vendors tend to ship support for RFCs, not IANA code points or individual I-Ds.
> 
> Are you saying that this applies to you and you cannot ship support absent an RFC? It seems odd to talk about the reluctance of third parties to implement something
> in talking about the interest you have in the draft.

This argument was one of the blockers for the proposed
draft-pwouters-crypto-current-practices, and I was squarely on the side of
"A code point must be good enough for everyone". But that was not
the consensus unfortunately.

While we at IETF might have strong opinions that an RFC is not needed
over a code point, we don't exist in a vaccum, and this position was
unfortunately unsustainable in the real world.

Additionally, my proposal tried to set equal rules for all crypto
algorithms BEFORE we had too many RFCs done. Now that half the RFCs
are published, it becomes even harder to tell those we don't yet have
one that we decided that as of now, no one need one.

It turns out the enemy was once again, ourselves :P

Paul