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

On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 09:32:27PM -0300, Fernando Gont wrote:
> On 21/11/2025 20:10, Nico Williams wrote:
> 
> [I haven't followed this discussion or even the entire thread... but
> happened to read this particular email]
> 
> The statement above seems to indicate that if someone wants to do X, and it
> can be inferred that the work will be carried out at the IETF or elsewhere,
> it's better for the IETF to take up that work.

It's a question of the WG's participant's bandwidth and whether we'd
rather the work have wider review.  The answer to the first part is
provided by the participants who say they want to work on the item, and
in this case the answer provided was "yes".  As to the latter I think it
is in fact better in this case to have more review.  But there is no
obligation on uninterested parties to provide said review.

> However, that's not my understannding of how things are supposed to work:
> IETF RFCs represent IETF consensus. And if something is known and understood
> to be a bad idea, I do think that the IETF shouldn't work on that. If
> anything, it's better that such work is carried out elsewhere, rather than
> having bad ideas rubber-stamped by the IETF "because they would otherwise be
> pursued elsewhere, anyway".

Yes.  But we don't do IETF consensus for WGs taking on work, only WG
consensus.  IETF consensus comes very early on, when a WG is proposed,
and near the end of the WG work item RFC publication process, at the
IETF Last Call stage.

Essentially that means that IETF consensus killing a WG work item is
extremely unlikely.

If you get a WG created, you'll get to publish its documents as RFCs
provided you follow the process.  I've worked on incepting two WGs, one
of which was somewhat controversial, so I know this from experience.

Nico
-- 

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