On Fri, Apr 3, 2026 at 12:43 PM Russ Housley <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> This leaves us with Case (2). I agree that it's useful for third parties
> to be able to distinguish whether a given notional algorithm is
> "finished" in the sense that the IETF might publish an updated
> version of that algorithm, potentially with a different code point.
> That normally happens with RFC publication, but we find ourselves
> in the difficult case where an algorithm *is* being worked on in the
> IETF but there is real contention about whether it should be published [0],
> leaving us in an unfortunate situation. This case should be rare,
> however, because algorithms which are adopted are typically
> published, and I don't think it's particularly hard to distinguish from
> cases like draft-10 of some future version of TLS.
>
> If this document is published as an IETF RFC, then the problem will go
> away. If not, then there will be a number of choices:
>
> - The ISE can publish the document as an RFC (assuming the ISE
>   is willing.)
> - The external SDO can publish their own document specifying
>   the algorithm, potentially using some content form this one [1].
> - The external SDO can hold their nose and cite the I-D.
>
> Of course these are also the exact same choices said SDO
> would have if the IETF had never taken up the document in the
> first place.
>
>
> The case we are talking about is an algorithm document that was adopted by
> the TLS WG.  Of course, adoption is not a guarantee that there will be an
> RFC; however, it does signal to other that the TLS WG is planning to do so.
>

This is precisely what I said in the text above:

That normally happens with RFC publication, but we find ourselves
in the difficult case where an algorithm *is* being worked on in the
IETF but there is real contention about whether it should be published [0],
leaving us in an unfortunate situation.


-Ekr
_______________________________________________
TLS mailing list -- [email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]

Reply via email to