Subject: TLS WG Chair Comments on draft-ietf-tls-authz-07

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:33:42 -0800

[Resent with proper addressing information]

As chairs of the TLS Working Group, we request that the IESG not
approve draft-ietf-tls-authz-07 as a Proposed Standard. This document
was initially brought to the TLS WG, which passed on it due to lack of
interest and it was subsequently advanced as an individual submission,
but IESG approval was rescinded after the disclosure of IPR that
affected the document. These events occurred in late 2006 and early
2007. In the nearly two years since the previous attempts at
progressing the document, the authors have not coordinated with the
TLS WG. The TLS WG was not consulted prior to the start of this new
Last Call.

Although we recognize that opinions vary about the wisdom of advancing
documents as individual submissions, this does not seem like an edge
case to us. First, there is a functioning, relevant, working group:
TLS. While it is true that the WG did not object to advancement two
years ago, that was with the impression that it would be
uncontroversial, which clearly is not the situation. On the contrary,
the IPR situation remains quite unclear and there are also technical
issues with the document (see Eric Rescorla's separate review), as
well as at least one part of the document which is obsoleted by RFC
5246.  These factors provide substantial evidence that the document
would benefit from the Working Group process.

If the authors wish to advance the document on the standards track,
the appropriate path is to submit it to the TLS WG as a work item. TLS
WG has the appropriate participation and skills to evaluate the need
for this work and the suitability of this document.  If there is
sufficient support for work in this area (including the usual RFC 3979
IPR Evaluation), then it can advance through the standards track via
the WG process. If the authors don't wish to go through the WG
process, we do not oppose advancement of this document as
Experimental. However, we do not believe that advancing a two year old
document which is clearly in scope of an active WG is an appropriate
use of the individual submission process. Therefore we urge the IESG
not to approve this document.

Eric Rescorla
Joe Salowey
[TLS WG Chairs]

---

From: "Powers Chuck-RXCP20" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:47:39 -0500

I am curious - is this a commitment by the TLS chairs to actually work
on this document? Or simply an attempt to prevent the IESG from
advancing a document that the WG previously declined to work on, and
could easily do so again?

I have no strong feelings on the document itself, as it is out of my
technical area of expertise. However, it is confusing to me for the
chairs of a working group to pass on working on a document due to lack
of interest, and then claim that the IESG should not advance it outside
of the WG process because they lead a relevant working group in this
area - you can't have it both ways.

IMO, if the chairs are committing to actually work on the document as
part of the TLS work program, great, perhaps it makes sense for the IESG
to send it to TLS for consideration. However, if not, then the IESG
should take into account the fact that TLS declined to address it when
it was offered to them, assume that this could easily happen again, and
proceed with making their decision to approve or not outside of the WG
process. Otherwise, it simply smells like an attempt to deep six the
document by pulling it back into a WG which has already declined to
address it, with no real commitment to work on it this time, either. 

Regards, 
Chuck 
------------- 
Chuck Powers, 
Motorola, Inc 
phone: 512-427-7261
mobile: 512-576-0008

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Eric Rescorla
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 11:34 PM
> To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; 
> [email-masked]
> Subject: TLS WG Chair Comments on draft-ietf-tls-authz-07
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:53:22 -0500

> could easily do so again?

I have no idea what Eric is thinking but I do think
that the environment has changed and that there's now
a lot more interest in authorization than there was
a few years ago.  That is to say, I think there are
more people who'd be able and/or inclined to work on
progressing the document.

Melinda

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:35:15 -0500

Hi Eric -

I went to review the bidding on the TLS mailing list covering this period and it appears the archives at <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tls/current/maillist.html>http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tls/current/maillist.html  only go back to the beginning of the year.  Could you point me at a more complete archive covering the period and the discussions about TLS WG interest in this document please?

With respect to this document, I'm not quite sure what you're proposing here.  Are you requesting the authors re-submit the document to the TLS WG as a work item that will actually be worked on?  Are you asserting that only non-controversial individual contributor items should be standardized as a general rule and that the WG is the arbiter of what is "controversial"?  

My understanding from what record I've found is that the item was submitted to the WG and the WG "no-bid" the work item and it continued - legitimately - under the existing rules as an individual submission. It sounds like from your WG chair comments that you're proposing that non-WG submissions should never become standards track documents.  If that's not the case, could you elaborate on why you "do not believe that advancing a two year old document which is clearly in scope of an active WG is an appropriate use of the individual submission process."

Thanks - Mike

---

From: Tim Polk <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:37:55 -0500

Eric & Joe,

In retrospect, I certainly should have consulted with the TLS WG before
initiating yet another Last Call.  I failed to do so because the  
controversy
had not centered on technical questions, but a great deal of time has
passed, and the mechanism is clearly relevant to the scope of your
working group.  I appreciate the course correction, as I did not intend
to perform an end around.

I will rectify the situation this week and request that the TLS WG  
review
the document to gauge interest in this area.  I would be delighted to
learn that the TLS WG is now interested in pursuing work in the
authorization space.  I have always thought that would be the best
course of action.  An important metric for working group interest
would be availability of an editor, since the lead editor for authz does
not have the necessary cycles available for active editorship.

In this case, I would ask the WG chairs to support approval of
draft-housley-tls-authz as experimental, with a hold in the RFC queue
until the the WG document  is ready for publication.  When completed,
the WG document would include an appendix that moves
draft-housley-tls-authz to historic.  In this way, draft-housley-tls- 
authz
would not appear as an RFC until the standards track document is
also an RFC, and would always be designated historic.  (This is
consistent with the recent handling of personal drafts in several other
working groups.)

If the working group decides not to pursue this work, I will *not*  
ask the
IESG to approve for standards track.  After two years as AD, I have my
own reservations about advancing individual submissions as standards
track.  (It has been problematic almost every time!)  I am not ready  
to set
a hard and fast rule, but opposition from the relevant wg chairs would
seem to be an important indicator.   :)  I will consider requesting  
approval
as Experimental, *contingent on the consensus call* of course.

I am unsure what course is best if the working group decides to pursue
authorization work but the authors decline to submit the document to the
working group a second time.  Hopefully, that set of conditions will not
come to pass.

Again, my apologies for the process failure (at least in spirit).   
Thanks for
responding, and I look forward to hearing the results of the TLS WG
discussions.

Thanks,

Tim Polk

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:30:59 -0800

>the document to gauge interest in this area.  I would be delighted to

Are you requesting that the TLS WG review an Internet-Draft that 
expired in December 2006?

Regards,
-sm

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:26:32 +0100

Michael StJohns wrote:

> I went to review the bidding on the TLS mailing list covering this
> period and it appears the archives at
> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tls/current/maillist.html  only
> go back to the beginning of the year.  Could you point me at a more
> complete archive covering the period and the discussions about TLS
> WG interest in this document please?

I'm not sure if you already got an answer to this question (following
the mailing list hasn't been easy :-), but...

The archives at
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tls/current/maillist.html
go back to September 2004 (just keep clicking the "Next Page" link --
and yes, I agree that the user interface could be better).

That should cover this draft's life span (version -00 is from 2006).
If you're interested in more ancient history, the following links
may (or may not) be useful:

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/text/tls/
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-tls/

Best regards,
Pasi