Re: [TLS] TLS process thread

[Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]>]

On Apr 9, 2014, at 1:49 PM, Sean Turner <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Thanks for your comments on the TLS 1.3 process.
> 
> While the IETF certainly has used competitions in the past, they are
> generally used to select one document from multiple starting points
> and then the documents undergo substantial revisions. Even then, there
> is a fairly mixed track record as WGs often find it very hard to come
> to a final selection and instead get bogged down in the selection
> process.

This conflates two different things that people asked for: having people create full proposals and picking among them, and designing TLS from security and transport principles unfettered by the current handshake and message format. I have had plenty of experience with the first in the IETF, and I agree that it rarely goes well. However, there is good reason to look at the second.

> In this case, however, our charter provides a clear starting point,
> namely RFC 5246, and a mandate to minimize the changes to that
> document.  

No, it doesn't say either of those. The actual quote, which the WG worked hard on, is "With these objectives in mind, the TLS WG will also place a priority in minimizing gratuitous changes to TLS."

> This does not mean that ideas for significant changes are
> are not welcome, but they should be phrased as revisions to RFC 5246
> rather than as a wholesale replacement. The chairs do not believe
> there is a convincing reason or support to deviate from the plan
> described in our previous message [1]. Complaints about this
> process should be addressed to our Area Director, Stephen Farrell.

Instead of formulating it as a "complaint", it would be more helpful to formulate it as a question. Stephen: do you support the chairs' interpretation that the charter prevents the WG from designing TLS from security and transport principles unfettered by the current handshake and message format?

--Paul Hoffman