Schedule for CA evaluations

Note that this schedule is tentative and may change without warning based on unforeseen circumstances. Nothing in this schedule shall be construed as a commitment by the Mozilla Foundation or the Mozilla project in general.

General timeline

Our process for evaluating CA requests is as follows:

1. CAs will be added into the queue for public discussion after they have completed the Information Gathering and Verification phase as described in CA:How_to_apply.
2. Prior to entering public discussion we may need to gather further information or an updated audit from the CA; if for some reason we cannot obtain the needed information then the next CA in the queue will be considered for public discussion.
3. Once a CA enters the public discussion period a representative of the CA must promptly respond in the discussion to any questions or concerns that are raised. If a CA delays their response for more than one week, then their discussion may be closed.
4. During the course of the discussion, we will make a decision as to whether to approve the request.
5. If the discussion results in moving forward with approval, then a representative of Mozilla will summarize the request in the bug, and indicate the plan to approve the request. After about one week, if no further questions or concerns are raised, then the representative of Mozilla may approve the request. Once a request is approved then a representative of Mozilla will file bug(s) against the appropriate developer(s) to have the necessary changes made to NSS (for CA root inclusion) or PSM (for EV-enabling a CA) or both.
6. If a request is not approved due to outstanding issues that need to be addressed (e.g., a need for further information, or concerns about CA practices) then the request will wither be closed, or will be added to the list of CAs responding to the first discussion. A second round of public discussion may be needed after the issues have been resolved.

Once bugs are filed against NSS and/or PSM the schedule is set first by the NSS/PSM developer(s) (for making the technical changes) and then by the product teams for Firefox and other products (to include the new changes in a release of Firefox, etc.) Root certificate changes to NSS/PSM are usually grouped and done as a batch when there is either a large enough set of changes or about every 3 months. When the developer makes the changes, a test build will be provided and the bug will be updated to request that you test it. After the NSS/PSM changes are committed to an NSS release, then a future version of Firefox will include the updated version of NSS/PSM.

Queue for Public Discussion

The following queue indicates the order in which requests will enter public discussion for root inclusion request from CAs who do not currently have a root certificate included in NSS. In general, only one or two of these requests may be in discussion at any given point. The amount of time that each discussion takes varies dramatically depending on the number of reviewers contributing to the discussion, and the types of concerns that are raised. For each discussion, there must be input from at least two people who have reviewed and commented on the request. To be added to this queue, a request must first achieve the "Information Confirmed Complete" status.

Requests from Already Included CAs that are in or Ready for Discussion

These requests are from CAs that already have roots included in NSS. The requests may be discussed in parallel; the goal is to start each discussion as soon as the information is ready. In general, these requests will remain in discussion for 2 weeks unless further discussion is warranted. To be added to this queue, a request must first achieve the "Information Confirmed Complete" status.

CAs Responding to First Discussion

The following list shows the CAs who have gone through the first round of public discussion, and have resulting action items to complete before the second round of public discussion may begin.

Requests in the Information Gathering and Verification Phase

The following CAs are in the Information Gathering and Verification Phase as described in CA:How_to_apply. These requests need to complete the Information Gathering and Verification Phase before they can be put into the queue for public discussion.

Requests in the Inclusion Phase

The following CAs have been approved and are in the Inclusion Phase as described in CA:How_to_apply.

Included CAs

Spreadsheet of all included root certificates