Subject: [kitten] The future of the kitten WG

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 10:20:36 -0600

Hi all,

The NomComm has selected me as the next Security AD, so I will need
to step down as kitten chair by the London meeting.

I do not want to ask Matt to take on the entire WG-chairing burden
himself, though he is willing to help train/mentor a new chair if
needed.  If we do not have sufficient staffing in the chair role,
it seems likely that we will need to close the WG.  Closing the WG
does not mean that work on Kerberos, SASL, and its other chartered
topics cannot happen anymore -- rather, it just means that such work
would need to happen in a different route, perhaps making use of the
new secdispatch WG for advice on how to do so.  Direct AD
sponsorship of drafts is also a possibility that I'd be willing to
pursue.

As a brief overview, the WG chair is tasked with running WG sessions
at physical IETF meetings (if any occur), judging WG consensus,
including soliciting additional reviews if needed to judge
consensus, and shepherding documents through their
lifecycle/approval process (both through the formal "document
shepherd" role and otherwise).  There are documentation and
checklists available to help with the process side of things, and it
is not necessary to have deep technical expertise on the subject
matter in order to perform the role.  (Some familiarity or
willingness to obtain familiarity with the technical topics is
needed, in order to be able to judge consensus and determine the
seriousness of any potential issues that may arise during discussion
of documents and their impact on WG consensus.)  Since kitten has
not regularly been scheduling sessions at physical IETF meetings, it
is likely that a travel budget is not needed, though it is still
recommended to talk to your management about the additional
involvement and time commitment.

Please let me know if you think you might be interested in the WG
chair role for kitten -- I'm happy to have a conversation about the
details of the role and how it might interact with your situation.

Thanks,

Ben

---

From: Nathaniel McCallum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 11:22:53 -0500

In the case where the WG closes, what would happen to the existing
drafts that are actively progressing?

On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 11:20 AM, Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]> wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> Kitten mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/kitten

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 10:44:22 -0600

> drafts that are actively progressing?

I think the question only really applies for rfc5653bis and
krb-spake-preauth, right?  The former is in the RFC Editor's queue and
should be able to stay there, and I would expect the latter to
probably continue life as an AD-sponsored document (though that is
flexible).  The [email-masked] list would presumably remain open
for discussion.

-Ben

---

From: Nathaniel McCallum <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 11:46:31 -0500

Would it be possible to progress krb-spake-preauth? We've had a number
of reviews and many iterations. We also have a working implementation.
Is there anything else we are waiting for?

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 10:51:00 -0600

Realistically, if we were going through the normal WG document
process, we probably would not even get an IETF last call before
London, since there is a huge "bulge" of documents that are all
trying to go through at the moment.  (The IESG had to defer several
documents and extend their IETF last call in order to actually give
the area directorate review teams and the community a reasonable
amount of time to actually comment on things.)  I'm still looking
into the details of what exactly is possible, both technically and
by policy.

That said, I am pretty confident that krb-spake-preauth will get
published as a Proposed Standard, and we are just worrying about the
details of how to get here.

-Ben

---

From: "Henry B (Hank) Hotz, CISSP" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 17:59:39 -0800

Yay.

> On Mar 1, 2018, at 8:51 AM, Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

Personal email.  [email-masked]

---

From: Nathaniel McCallum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2018 11:01:02 -0500

> details of how to get here.

My concern is not just that we get there but also how long it takes us
to get there.

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2018 09:04:12 -0700

> My concern is not just that we get there but also how long it takes us

It seems to me that the existence or non-existence of a WG isn't the
problem, but the lack of energy. :-) If we push on through and get folks
to review the relevant documents, we can get things done.

Peter