Subject: [kitten] Barry Leiba's No Objection on draft-ietf-kitten-rfc4402bis-02: (with COMMENT)

From: "Barry Leiba" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2015 09:35:40 -0800

Barry Leiba has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-kitten-rfc4402bis-02: No Objection

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COMMENT:
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There is one thing I'd like to discuss here (lower-case "discuss"):

   This document obsoletes RFC 4402 and reclassifies that document as
   historic.

We don't have a clear sense of what "historic" means and how it interacts
with "obsolete", so let me start with how I look at it:
I think that a newer version of a protocol specification makes the old
version of that protocol obsolete.
I think that a protocol (but not a version) that is no longer recommended
for use might become historic.
I think that if we have a protocol called ABCDP, and we make a new
protocol called LMNOP that replaces ABCDP, we might likely make ABCDP
historic.
I think that if we then have an updated version of LMNOP, that obsoletes
the earlier version... but it doesn't make it historic.

So I question whether the "reclassifies as historic" is the right thing
here or not.  4402 will be marked "obsolete", and that should be enough.

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From: "Alvaro Retana (aretana)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 14:03:46 +0000

>here or not.  4402 will be marked "obsolete", and that should be enough.

I agree.

Alvaro.

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From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 14:05:21 +0000

>> here or not.  4402 will be marked "obsolete", and that should be enough.

OTOH what harm is there is just leaving it as the WG
wanted? I see none.

S.

> 
> Alvaro.
> 
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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 09:35:21 -0500

> OTOH what harm is there is just leaving it as the WG

The possible harm is that someone seeing that 4402 is Historic might
think that the *protocol* described in 4402 is Historic, and that's
not what we mean.  That's why Obsoletes and Historic are different
things.

Barry

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From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 14:41:26 +0000

> not what we mean.  That's why Obsoletes and Historic are different

Sure, that's a possible interpretation. My take is that
most RFC labels are ambiguous and slowly fluid (like
treacle:-) so I don't care much.

However in this case the kitten WG interpretation iiuc
is that the PRF in 4402 is historic (this one differing
substantively even if only in one input bit), so I think
we ought all be fine with that. IOW, I think you and they
are both correct if by "protocol" in your text one means
just the PRF.

Nobody is of course saying that Kerberos is historic. (Well,
not v5 anyway;-)

S

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From: Shawn M Emery <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 23:43:45 -0700

> Nobody is of course saying that Kerberos is historic. (Well,

Yes, your differentiation is correct.  There was a least one vendor that 
had implemented 4402 as specified and could not interoperate. We want to 
make clear that the previous PRF is not to be relied upon (albeit to no 
fault of its own).

Shawn.
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