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[3.10] Forward-looking / roadmap information #10

Description

@ozzyathome

Aspect

Section: 3.10 Forward-looking and roadmap information
Orientation relevance: migration

Some profiles need to capture not only the cryptography a product uses today, but what a vendor plans to support in future — which matters a lot for the shift to quantum-safe cryptography. This issue is about whether and how that "future intentions" information is recorded, and how to keep it clearly separate from present-day facts so nobody is misled.

Example
A car's spec sheet says what the car has now; the manufacturer's roadmap says "we'll add this feature next year." Mixing the two would mislead a buyer. In the same way, "this product supports quantum-safe encryption today" must never be confused with "we plan to support it in 2027" — this issue decides how to record the plan without blurring it into the present.

Objective

Decide how migration-oriented profiles express capability and intent without confusing current
state with future commitment.

Background & links

Scoping document §3.10, and the inventory-vs-migration distinction in §2.5. Real deployments
show "capable of" diverging from "configured and active" — the methodology must keep these
distinct.

Options under consideration

  • Separate linked artifact — the CBOM records current state only; roadmap/commitments live
    in a complementary, clearly separated artifact. (Trade-off: clean integrity of the CBOM;
    two artifacts to manage.)
  • Flagged forward-looking fields — roadmap data carried inside migration profiles,
    explicitly marked as forward-looking. (Trade-off: single artifact; risk of conflation if
    flagging is weak.)

Open questions

  • Whether forward-looking information (PQC capability, planned support dates, hybrid-mode availability, hardware-refresh dependency) is in-scope of the profile or kept separate.
  • How "capable of" is distinguished from "configured and active."
  • How readiness/dependency information (certification timelines, hardware constraints) is represented.

Dependencies

Depends on orientation declaration (3.1 #4) and attribute model (3.3 #1).

Decision

Not yet decided.

Impact on the specification

Spec section "Forward-looking information for migration profiles."

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    aspect:roadmap3.10 Forward-looking / roadmap informationneeds:ownerNo aspect owner assigned yetorientation:migrationRelevant to migration-oriented profilesstatus:deliberatingOpen argument — options being exploredtype:decisionA concrete choice to be resolved

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