Release Maintenance Guidelines in specific cycles

[dzacharo]

After several discussions and the fact that some WGs produce and vote for a large number of ballots, the Forum should consider adopting a policy of releasing Maintenance Guidelines less frequently than the current process.

Current issues identified:

• Administrative burden for officers (SCWG had a significant increase in ballots since 1/2023)
• CAs may need to implement changes outside their regular development cycles
• Auditors are often not prepared or do not have defined audit criteria to assess new requirements
• Alignment with other SDOs (ETSI/WebTrust) is very challenging
• Auditors are confused and have no uniform guidance for resolving conflicts caused by different versions of CABF/ETSI/WT during an audit period.

A proposal has been presented to the Forum F2F meetings that supports the following elements:

• Ballots will still pass initial vote and IPR Review following the current process, but they will be "parked" until the next release cycle of the Maintenance Guideline. Specific requirements can still have independent effective dates that must take into account the effective date of the released Maintenance Guideline.
• Release of Maintenance Guidelines twice a year (March 15, September 15) except for emergency releases.
• Emergency releases would be approved bypassing the pre-defined release dates by consensus of the CWG Voting Members or if there is no consensus, via a separate Ballot to determine if the ballot qualifies for an emergency release, with a strict 7 days discussion period and 7 days voting period.

[BenWilson-Mozilla]

I'm OK with releasing Maintenance Guidelines only twice a year (March 15, September 15), but I think we ought to replace the word "emergency" with the words "special" or "expedited" in the language proposed. I'll try that approach and draft a ballot.