Hi!

I largely agree, and think this is worth a LOT of time exploring.

Eliot

On 08.07.2026 03:54, Eric Rescorla wrote:


On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 6:36 PM John Levine <[email protected]> wrote:

    It appears that Martin Thomson  <[email protected]> said:
    >Pulling back to Brian's email, because the discussion has
    wandered off.
    >
    >I reach a different conclusion.  It's not really broken as it is.

    I'd draw a different conclusion. We really need a better way to
    update our
standards.

Unsurprisingly, I agree with this.


    Other SDOs manage to publish updated editions of their standards
    with a process
    to add or change parts of them without having to reissue the whole
    thing.

Here is a potentially nonexclusive list of cases, in rough order from
smallest to biggest:
- Editorial (non-semantic) changes (typos, rewrites, etc.)
- Clarifications that are theoretically semantic (e.g., fixing things where
  everyone agrees what the the spec should say but it doesn't
  say it or it's unclear).
- Isolated semantic changes (e.g., forbidding algorithms, adding
  new algorithms, etc.)
- Significant extensions (something like TLS ECH)
- Total rewrites

One important question is how high in this ladder we can go
while maintaining a single document. My personal inclination
is pretty high, up to and including some extensions, but I
imagine others will have different beliefs.

-Ekr


    I realize this is a bigger discussion than whether to put Updates:
    or Amends: in
    the XML header, but I think it's a real problem we've been
    avoiding for a very
    long time.

    R's,
    John

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