Discussion Period: Ballot FORUM-035 "Allow relative effective dates in ballots"

[Aaron Gable]

Purpose of the Ballot

The change to the Forum Bylaws would allow ballots to contain relative effective dates such as "Effective [6 months after publication], CAs MUST...", which the Chair would then convert to concrete effective dates like "Effective Jan 15, 2026, CAs MUST...". This allows the ballot writing and discussion process to focus on the length of the necessary transition/implementation period, rather than on the specific effective date. In turn this prevents ballots from needing to be re-proposed simply because the discussion period has taken longer than expected and now the effective date is too close.

The ballot is proposed by Aaron Gable (ISRG / Let's Encrypt) and is endorsed by Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) and Ryan Dickson (Google).

Motion Begins

The Bylaws of the CA/Browser Forum are amended as described in the following redline:

https://github.com/cabforum/forum/compare/2b583cab2959483caa8e4c5254ff9570a105537b...ed7d987f3c8a753118ab5303081b775e9b6946ac

Motion Ends

The procedure for approval of this ballot is as follows:

Discussion (7+ days):

- Start time: 2025-05-20 16:30 UTC

- End time: 2025-05-17 16:30 UTC or later

Vote for approval (7 days):

- Start time: TBD

- End time: TBD

[Aaron Gable]

Apologies, the "End time" was typo'd. It, of course, should say "2025-05-27 16:30 UTC or later".

I don't believe this requires reissuing the ballot, as the discussion period is not part of the Motion itself.

Thanks and sorry for the confusion,

Aaron