Thanks, Ben! I think this is an excellent summary of the situation!
Cheers, John From: Ben Schwartz <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, 25 February 2026 at 18:37 To: Richard Barnes <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> Subject: [TLS] Re: Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.txt I think part of the underlying problem here is that using an expired individual draft as a "stable specification" feels extremely unsatisfying, even when it is explicitly permitted: * The tools mark the draft as expired. This suggests that it is no longer valid, even though it is actually the "active" specification for the IANA registry entry. * The draft is marked with an "intended status" that has not been reached. This suggests that the draft may evolve to reach that status, which would make it no longer a "stable reference". If the authors are content with the draft version as a stable specification, then this "intended status" is false! * The draft has a version number that can be incremented at any time, contributing to a sense that the specification could evolve. The IANA registry entry references a specific version, which formally solves this problem but still leaves the impression of continuing evolution. With some small adjustments to the IETF draft process, I think we could make this track a lot more appealing. For example, we could: * Allow authors to mark drafts as irreversibly "final", as an alternative to "expired", ensuring that there will be no future versions. This would make the unversioned individual draft into a stable reference. * Add an "intended status" like "Registration Reference Material" or "Not For RFC Publication", to indicate that the document is not pursuing formal publication and has reached its intended status. * Remove use of the word "draft" for documents that are actually final and not intended as "draft RFCs". Obviously this is all well outside the purview of the TLS working group, but perhaps we could complain to the right venue... --Ben Schwartz ________________________________ From: Richard Barnes <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, February 23, 2026 7:55 PM To: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> Subject: [TLS] Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.txt Hi TLS folks, Those who have worked with me know that I hate doing unnecessary work. It occurred to me that the TLS WG has been doing a lot of unnecessary work on drafts that just register crypto algorithms. This draft proposes that we shouldn't do that. Submitted for your consideration, --Richard ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 2:53 PM Subject: New Version Notification for draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.txt To: Richard Barnes <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> A new version of Internet-Draft draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.txt has been successfully submitted by Richard Barnes and posted to the IETF repository. Name: draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email Revision: 00 Title: Stop Doing Cryptographic Algorithm Drafts when Email to IANA is All You Need Date: 2026-02-24 Group: Individual Submission Pages: 5 URL: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.txt<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.txt__;!!Bt8RZUm9aw!-qqAI315OfkmbumnZa_k-slfZYMX-YkNCmouCmbdLWlb6RV9T04t8ZZqaC36TxILa-HKOOM$> Status: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email/__;!!Bt8RZUm9aw!-qqAI315OfkmbumnZa_k-slfZYMX-YkNCmouCmbdLWlb6RV9T04t8ZZqaC36TxIL7ul-wBk$> HTML: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email-00.html__;!!Bt8RZUm9aw!-qqAI315OfkmbumnZa_k-slfZYMX-YkNCmouCmbdLWlb6RV9T04t8ZZqaC36TxIL_WT86Iw$> HTMLized: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-barnes-tls-this-could-have-been-an-email__;!!Bt8RZUm9aw!-qqAI315OfkmbumnZa_k-slfZYMX-YkNCmouCmbdLWlb6RV9T04t8ZZqaC36TxILT2Ylylw$> Abstract: People keep pitching drafts to the TLS Working Group where the only thing the draft does is register a code point for a cryptographic algorithm. Stop doing that. It's unnecessary. Write an email to IANA instead. The IETF Secretariat
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