On Fri, Sep 12, 2025 at 6:48 AM D. J. Bernstein <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Those messages still seem to be secret, > > Our message can be found in Paul's response under the heading of > > "received appeal text". > > "Message"? Here's what we've been told: "Eric Rescorla immediately > contacted" the chairs; then there were a "number of back and forth > messages"; then "Eric Rescorla contacted the chairs privately"; then > "Eric Rescorla, Richard Barnes, and Martin Thomson all objected > privately"; then the AD received email "from Eric Rescorla, Richard > Barnes and Martin Thomson" and email "from Tim Hollebeek". > > That sounds like a dozen or so secret messages, not one message. Thanks for clarifying. Yes, our messages to the chairs were, as you say, off-list and not included in Paul's response. I don't believe that the intent of the language you are quoting from RFC 2026 is to forbid private messages between WG members and the chairs [0] and it's quite a common practice [1], so I don't think that this reflects the way this text has commonly been interpreted by the community. If you think that RFC 2026 forbids all private communications, then this seems like an issue that's bigger than TLS, so rather than arguing it in this specific case, I would encourage you to bring it to some broader forum, such as [email protected] or the main IETF list. -Ekr [0] Indeed, I read S 2 of RFC 3934 as explicitly authorizing private communications in some circumstances: "Unless the disruptive behavior is severe enough that it must be stopped immediately, the WG chair should attempt to discourage the disruptive behavior by communicating directly with the offending individual. If the behavior persists, the WG chair should send at least one public warning on the WG mailing list. " [1] As another example, RFC 2418 S 6.5 explicitly permits the creation of private design teams: It is often useful, and perhaps inevitable, for a sub-group of a working group to develop a proposal to solve a particular problem. Such a sub-group is called a design team. In order for a design team to remain small and agile, it is acceptable to have closed membership and private meetings. Design teams may range from an informal chat
_______________________________________________ TLS mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
