Re: [cabfpub] DRAFT Ballot Forum-XX: Allow Informative Changes to Guidelines

[Ryan Sleevi via Public]

On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 11:14 AM Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) via Public
 wrote:

> I probably got confused by processing all the previous discussions, during
> the F2F, teleconferences and the recent discussion on the CA/B Forum
> plenary public list.
>
> Leaving the EV Guidelines change aside, which you are absolutely correct
> and I didn't consider it properly, the rationale of making this a
> Forum-ballot is because the procedures for updating the Guidelines affect
> all Working Groups. The existing Server Certificate WG Charter doesn't say
> anything about how the ballots take place because this is described in the
> Bylaws. Passing a Forum Ballot with an accepted practice would affect all
> Working Groups and therefore we would not need to pass the same ballot for
> each Working Group. Please note the Motion language which starts with "The
> Chair or Vice-Chair of a CWG..."
>

This language does not work at a Forum level, because it implicitly assumes
a document structure to Final Guidelines or Final Maintenance Guidelines,
except those are determined at the CWG level. If that's your goal, then it
emphasizes precisely why it needs to be in the Bylaws. If that's not your
goal, that emphasizes precisely why it should be up to CWGs to decide when
adopting a Final Guideline or Final Maintenance Guideline.


> I did not propose updating the Bylaws because the majority of Members
> wanted to have more substantial changes collected for Bylaws updates
> because of the extra revisions (though legal and other departments). You
> also supported that we should not make small changes to Bylaws very
> frequently. I tried to capture that in this ballot which is why it is not a
> Bylaws update but a "Forum approved" practice, which already happens today.
>

That doesn't mean it's OK to /avoid/ changing the Bylaws; that means it's
better to *batch* the change. Or, you know, propose the change anyways and
see how/if folks accept it.


> There is no contravention of the Bylaws as far as this procedure is
> concerned. The Bylaws are silent about these changes.
>

Absolutely not. These are currently part of a CWGs Final Guideline / Final
Maintenance Guideline, which have a defined process for adoption and review
of all changes.


> If you consider that this proposed procedure violates the Bylaws, then you
> are practically saying that all existing Guidelines published on our web
> site are invalid.
>

The entire point should be to reduce ambiguity and to provide the
appropriate guidance. The only way to reduce that ambiguity is to ensure
it's captured within the Bylaws. While this may "seem" like a minor point,
the entire objective is to avoid a situation where "The bylaws say X", then
a ballot comes about that says "but we meant Y".


> If members feel that this needs to be an SCWG ballot, I'd gladly move it
> to the SCWG public list. If members feel this should be a Forum ballot, for
> the reasons mentioned above, I will revise the ballot and remove the
> changes to the EV Guidelines, as these would have to be performed at the
> SCWG. I therefore welcome some feedback from other members as well.
>
> I also feel a bit offended by your expression that I am "committed to
> avoiding changes to the Bylaws". I would very much like to make this a
> Bylaws update but I respect the majority's opinion not to make small
> changes to Bylaws.
>

It's unclear why offense was received, but it was certainly not intended.
You made it clear in your earlier message that you believe this should be
in the Bylaws and you are intentionally not placing it in the Bylaws. That
seems a very clear, intentional choice, especially in light of past
discussion why it should be in the Bylaws, not do it.

In our past conversations, I tried to helpfully guide you to solutions that
would comply, but it seems those are misremembered or misunderstood.
1) Change the Bylaws at the Forum level to allow CWGs to designate
informative sections of the FG/FMG which can be modified by the CWG
Chair/Vice-Chair (Forum Ballot) and have the SCWG & CSWGs designate the
appropriate sections that meet that criteria
2) Another option, which we did not discuss at length, but has tied in to
past discussions on infrastructure, but which also clearly solves this, and
w/o a change to Bylaws, is to remove the aforementioned sections from the
FG/FMG such that they are not officially part of the FG/FMG, and merely
aspects of the presentational format.

Put differently, #2 is highlighting that we don't dispute whether the Chair
or Vice-Chair is allowed to produce a PDF or Word Doc version of the
FG/FMG, even though those transform the representation. The version in
GitHub does not, for example, have page numbers or a footer checked in -
those are part of the presentation that's generated, as is the Table of
Contents. The infrastructure group even looked at how to remove the need
for the cover page being part of the document, by having that appended
during the presentational 

Re: [cabfpub] DRAFT Ballot Forum-XX: Allow Informative Changes to Guidelines

[Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) via Public]

I probably got confused by processing all the previous discussions, 
during the F2F, teleconferences and the recent discussion on the CA/B 
Forum plenary public list.


Leaving the EV Guidelines change aside, which you are absolutely correct 
and I didn't consider it properly, the rationale of making this a 
Forum-ballot is because the procedures for updating the Guidelines 
affect all Working Groups. The existing Server Certificate WG Charter 
doesn't say anything about how the ballots take place because this is 
described in the Bylaws. Passing a Forum Ballot with an accepted 
practice would affect all Working Groups and therefore we would not need 
to pass the same ballot for each Working Group. Please note the Motion 
language which starts with "The Chair or Vice-Chair of a CWG..."


I did not propose updating the Bylaws because the majority of Members 
wanted to have more substantial changes collected for Bylaws updates 
because of the extra revisions (though legal and other departments). You 
also supported that we should not make small changes to Bylaws very 
frequently. I tried to capture that in this ballot which is why it is 
not a Bylaws update but a "Forum approved" practice, which already 
happens today.


There is no contravention of the Bylaws as far as this procedure is 
concerned. The Bylaws are silent about these changes. If you consider 
that this proposed procedure violates the Bylaws, then you are 
practically saying that all existing Guidelines published on our web 
site are invalid.


If members feel that this needs to be an SCWG ballot, I'd gladly move it 
to the SCWG public list. If members feel this should be a Forum ballot, 
for the reasons mentioned above, I will revise the ballot and remove the 
changes to the EV Guidelines, as these would have to be performed at the 
SCWG. I therefore welcome some feedback from other members as well.


I also feel a bit offended by your expression that I am "committed to 
avoiding changes to the Bylaws". I would very much like to make this a 
Bylaws update but I respect the majority's opinion not to make small 
changes to Bylaws.



Dimitris.


On 2019-09-11 4:25 μ.μ., Ryan Sleevi via Public wrote:

Dimitris,

I'm a bit surprised you went this way, as I do think it creates more 
problems.


On a ballot legitimacy level, I do not believe you can propose a Forum 
level ballot to change a Final Maintenance Guideline of a CWG, which 
you've done by proposing to use the Forum to change the EV Guidelines. 
That seems directly in contravention of our Bylaws.


With respect to proposing Ballots that change our procedure in 
contravention of the Bylaws, this is not acceptable. If you want to 
change our Bylaws, then change our Bylaws - but the suggestion of 
creating procedures that conflict with and contravene our Bylaws, 
without actually capturing them, undermines the entire legitimacy of 
the Forum and our IP protections, which are gated upon the execution 
of the Bylaws.


As we've previously discussed, repeatedly, a path forward involves 
having the Bylaws recognize that CWGs may designate portions of Final 
Guidelines and Final Maintenance Guidelines as informative and 
non-binding, and permit modifications to those sections by the Chair 
or Vice-Chair. This would then allow the SCWG to designate the 
appropriate sections as informative.


If you're committed to avoiding changes to the Bylaws, there are also 
obvious other solutions as well, which fully comport with our Bylaws 
and IP policy, and which would be done at the SCWG level.


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Re: [cabfpub] DRAFT Ballot Forum-XX: Allow Informative Changes to Guidelines

[Ryan Sleevi via Public]

Dimitris,

I'm a bit surprised you went this way, as I do think it creates more
problems.

On a ballot legitimacy level, I do not believe you can propose a Forum
level ballot to change a Final Maintenance Guideline of a CWG, which you've
done by proposing to use the Forum to change the EV Guidelines. That seems
directly in contravention of our Bylaws.

With respect to proposing Ballots that change our procedure in
contravention of the Bylaws, this is not acceptable. If you want to change
our Bylaws, then change our Bylaws - but the suggestion of creating
procedures that conflict with and contravene our Bylaws, without actually
capturing them, undermines the entire legitimacy of the Forum and our IP
protections, which are gated upon the execution of the Bylaws.

As we've previously discussed, repeatedly, a path forward involves having
the Bylaws recognize that CWGs may designate portions of Final Guidelines
and Final Maintenance Guidelines as informative and non-binding, and permit
modifications to those sections by the Chair or Vice-Chair. This would then
allow the SCWG to designate the appropriate sections as informative.

If you're committed to avoiding changes to the Bylaws, there are also
obvious other solutions as well, which fully comport with our Bylaws and IP
policy, and which would be done at the SCWG level.
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[cabfpub] DRAFT Ballot Forum-XX: Allow Informative Changes to Guidelines

[Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) via Public]

I have prepared a draft ballot which is also posted at 
https://wiki.cabforum.org/forum-xx_-_allow-informative-changes-to-guidelines. 
I am looking for two endorsers to get a number and to proceed with the 
official discussion period.



Thank you,
Dimitris.


 Ballot Forum-XX: Allow Informative Changes to Guidelines

The following motion has been proposed by Dimitris Zacharopoulos of 
HARICA and endorsed by /_ of /_ and /_ of /_.



   Background

Following up on recent discussions,

 *
   At the last F2F in Thessaloniki
   

 *
   On the server certificate WG list
   

and since the current Bylaws (version 2.2) do not address how the Chair 
or Vice-Chair could make any changes to the Final Guidelines or Final 
Maintenance Guidelines, this ballot proposes a procedure that would 
allow the Forum or WG Chair (or Vice-Chairs) to make some informative 
changes to Final Guidelines and Final Maintenance Guidelines. Please 
note that these practices are already in place and have been followed 
for years without any “official” approval from the Forum or a WG and 
without having received any objections by the Membership.


Since this is language that would normally be in the Bylaws, and while 
we have other Bylaws issues pending to discuss, I would like to propose 
this ballot to get the approval of the Forum to establish a 
“Forum-approved” practice. When we update the Bylaws in the future, we 
will add this practice as well.


There seems to be consensus by the Forum to allow the Chair or 
Vice-Chair to update informative (non-normative) sections of produced 
Guidelines.


This ballot also proposes removal of the first paragraph of the EV 
Guidelines which contains the version number and is redundant because 
the latest version and effective dates are already included in the cover 
page and the versioning table.


*— MOTION BEGINS —*

The Chair or Vice-Chair of a CWG is allowed to perform changes to 
informative (non-normative) parts of a Final Guideline or Final 
Maintenance Guideline before it is published to the public web site and 
without requiring a ballot procedure. The set of changes are limited to:


 *
   The cover page,
 *
   The Table of Contents,
 *
   Headers/Footers with version numbers and page numbers,
 *
   The table with document revisions or Document History,
 *
   The table with Relevant Dates,
 *
   The year in the “Copyright” information,

unless a ballot explicitly updates this information.

Remove the first paragraph of the EV Guidelines which reads:

 "This version 1.7.0 represents the Extended Validation Guidelines, as adopted by 
the CA/Browser Forum as of Ballot SC17, passed by the Forum on 21 May 2019 and effective 
as of 21 June 2019."

*— MOTION ENDS —*

The procedure for this ballot is as follows (exact start and end times 
may be adjusted to comply with applicable Bylaws and IPR Agreement):


*Forum-XX - Allow Informative Changes to Guidelines* 	*Start time (22:00 
UTC)* 	*End time (22:00 UTC)*

Discussion (7 days) XX September 2019   XX September 2019
Expected Vote for approval (7 days) XX September 2019   XX September 
2019



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