[saag] Re: on derivative work rights statements in emails to Security Area mailing lists

On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 3:10 PM Nico Williams <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 01:49:37PM -0800, Christian Huitema wrote:
> > I think this boils down to an argument about power and authority of the
> > IETF. [...]
>
> As we often say: there is no IETF protocol police.
>
> We can -and do- say no to some things, it's just not the same thing as
> being an enforcer of "thou shalt not do X".
>
> The specific disagreement I was referring to was about whether a WG
> should adopt a given work item.  I think DJB thought that by not
> adopting it the work wouldn't get done.
>
> My point to DJB is that because the necessary codepoints have been
> assigned (and would have been even if the WG did not want it, short of
> doing the work of closing the registry) the WG cannot block that work.
> We only get to decide whether that work will be done "in the WG" or
> outside the WG, and if it's going to get done, then it's better to do it
> "in" the WG than outside it.
>
> It's important that DJB understand this point.  The WG chair really did
> no one dirty on that decision.  Thus in that particular case there were
> no grounds to appeal.  This sub-thread I started is really an attempt to
> get this point across in a way that hopefully soothes the seas rather
> than roiling them.

The WG specifically made the change to avoid having to make RFCs for
every ciphersuite that people wanted in TLS.

Now we're seeing that decision get used to justify making RFCs for
every ciphersuite that people want in TLS.

I'm quite surprised by this outcome.

Sincerely,
Watson

-- 
Astra mortemque praestare gradatim

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