Dear colleagues, On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 12:07:34PM -0400, Dean Anderson wrote:
> I'm working on a longer analysis of the issues and the dispute. I'm becoming frustrated by this discussion for two reasons. First, there is precious little discussion in this thread of the proposal on the table -- whether to adopt the draft in question as a WG document. It seems to me that getting past that hurdle is the task at hand, and it'd be real nice if we could make such a determination. A subsidiary issue is the one of whether another draft should be partially subsumed under the draft in question. Those actually seem to me to be two different questions, and they could surely be handled separately. But even if we suppose that they should be handled together, I imagine that discussion of the proposed text(s) would be better than long, unguided discussion on the meta-issues. Which brings me to my second problem. As nearly as I can tell, there are no clear conflict of interest guidelines for working groups in general, and the IETF has previously concluded that such a state of affairs is a good thing. Instead, the principle has been that working group members (i.e. everybody participating) should make their arguments and see whther they get the support of the WG community; and then follow the usual chain of appeals in the event they are unsatisfied. I spent only a few hours doing that research, so I may well have overlooked something; but that was the general view I was able to put together. Information to the contrary would be welcome. If I'm right about this, then this is an internal matter for the working group, and so far I'm not seeing a lot of support for the idea that there is a real conflict of interest in this particular case. A strong argument that interests in _fact_ conflict, rather than in principle (which principle I don't so far understand in its application, but that's a detail), would perhaps convince me of an alternative point of view. I observe at the same time that I support the state of affairs as I understand it to be; that is, I don't think it possible that meaningful work on technical standards in the (almost entirely volunteer) IETF is even possible without a great deal of in-principle conflict of interest in the usual, political way. Everybody here had _better_ be deeply interested in the outcomes, or we're producing garbage. I suppose this is why there is a traditional supposition around the IETF that people are speaking for themselves and not their employers, and why affiliation declarations are often not made at the microphone during meetings. Therefore, if I am correct that there are not current guidelines in respect of conflicts of interest in working groups, and some people think there should be, I encourage those people to make a process-change submission to the IETF generally in the form of an Internet Draft. It will then be up to the wider IETF community whether we want such a change to happen. Since some of those bringing complaints have lately joined the group of people willing to prepare I-Ds, I am eagerly anticipating the publication of such a draft. If there is just a disagreement within the working group, then presumably the relevant structures of the community (in this case, the AD, since one Chair is the object of the accusation and the other has already recused himself on the topic) should be brought to bear on the topic, either here on list or in whatever fora appropriate according to IETF tradition. Without that, I can't see that even longer discussion about the accusations and reasoning for them is a topic for this list. Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan 204-4141 Yonge Street Afilias Canada Toronto, Ontario Canada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> M2P 2A8 jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 416 646 3304 x4110 _______________________________________________ DNSOP mailing list DNSOP@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop
