Salz, Rich writes: > No, the IETF does not require controversies to be resolved. It > requires "rough consensus."
I don't know what dividing line you're drawing here. Whatever terminology is used, WG action requires general agreement. This doesn't necessarily mean unanimity, but the WG is obliged to fairly consider each objection and to try to resolve each objection. If resolution fails and an objection ends up being overridden then there has to be documentation explaining why that objection was overridden. My source for these statements is authoritative and binding upon IETF, but naming the source here would be risky given threats by the WG chairs (currently under appeal), so I'm not naming the source in this message. I will, however, point to a non-authoritative source that's well worth reading on these topics, namely RFC 7282. For example, that RFC says the following: "What can't happen is that the chair bases their decision solely on hearing a large number of voices simply saying, 'The objection isn't valid.' That would simply be to take a vote. A valid justification needs to me made. ... Simply having a large majority of people agreeing to dismiss an objection is not enough to claim there is rough consensus; the group must have honestly considered the objection and evaluated that other issues weighed sufficiently against it." Anyone reading the TLS WG mailing list sees controversies regarding PQ signatures and non-hybrid PQ. I hope that these can be resolved in favor of going ahead with PQ signatures and banning non-hybrid PQ---but resolution requires continuing the engineering discussion. Calls for votes are inappropriate distractions from that. > But note this explicit statement of wide latitude being given: "A > number of procedural questions and issues will arise over time, and it > is the function of the Working Group Chair(s) to manage the group > process, keeping in mind that the overall purpose of the group is to > make progress towards reaching rough consensus in realizing the > working group's goals and objectives." No, a general statement that the chair will "manage the group process" is not an "explicit statement of wide latitude". If a chair called for a majority vote of large companies and declared the result to be "rough consensus", would you say that, well, chairs can do anything they want if they claim to be managing the group process? Sounds like a fake SDO to me. More to the point, that's not what the text says. ---D. J. Bernstein _______________________________________________ TLS mailing list -- tls@ietf.org To unsubscribe send an email to tls-le...@ietf.org
