Re: [TLS] call for consensus: changes to IANA registry rules for cipher suites

[Benjamin Kaduk <[e-mail]>]

On 03/31/2016 08:45 AM, Hannes Tschofenig wrote:
> Hi Sean,
>
> What is the requirement for adding a spec to the list with the value
> IETF Recommended = "Y" (or to change an entry from "Y" to "N")?
>
> You mention two conditions:
>
>  * IETF has consensus
>  * Are reasonably expected to be supported by widely used
> implementations such as open-source libraries
>
> Of course, with all our work we expect them to be supported by widely
> used implementations. The future is unpredicable and therefore not a

I don't think it's universally true that we expect all our work to be
supported by widely used implementations.  Sometimes we standardize
things that are kind of niche cases and not expected to be widely used. 
(This also somewhat relates to the question, already raised, of how to
turn a 'Y' back to a 'N' for things we decide we don't like any more.)

> good item for making a judgement. I realy find document authors who have
> less interest to get their stuff deployed.

...but I do agree that predictions of the future do not make good
criteria here.

> Getting IETF consensus on specifications has turned to be easier than
> most people expect and the IETF published RFCs that have not received a
> lot of review. Large amount of review is not a pre-condition for consensus.

I think that documents introducing things that get a 'Y' should
explicitly say that in the IANA considerations, so the IETF consensus
explicitly includes support for the 'Y', and not all documents published
with IETF consensus need to go for the 'Y'.  Which is not to say that
putting in such an IANA considerations section will magically cause
people to read the document at IETF last call, of course, but I do have
confidence that the IESG (if no one else) will ask whether the TLS
working group has been consulted for something trying to set the 'Y' column.

> While your idea sounds good it suffers from practical issues. I am
> worried that the process will not be too fair and may favor a certain
> type of community.
>

At the risk of making predictions of the future, it's not clear to me
that the proposal will be any less fair than the current state of
affairs (which is not perfect, either).

-Ben