Re: I-D Action:draft-klensin-iaoc-member-00.txt
--On Tuesday, September 01, 2009 18:06 -0400 Leslie Daigle les...@thinkingcat.com wrote: I'm having troubles reconciling a couple of things: 1/ Recent discussion (different draft) on the importance of the IAOC implementing IETF (and IAB) policy and admin requirements; not having the IAOC *setting* those requirements; 2/ Suggesting that the IAB IETF Chairs should not be on the IAOC. Leslie, Let me try a little different perspective on this because I see both different issues and a more complex set of tradeoffs than your note implies. First and most important, the draft doesn't say the IETF and IAB Chairs cannot serve on the IAOC. It eliminates that function as a _requirement_ of their roles. If the people holding those positions, in conjunction, respectively, with the IESG or IAB conclude that the Chairs have the time to do the job well and are, in your words, in a unique position..., then nothing prevents them from _deciding_ to preserve the status quo. The problem is that we are turning those roles into full time (or more) jobs. I believe the IETF Chair role has already passed that point and that the IAB Chair one is rapidly moving in that direction. That is not, IMO, healthy for the IETF because, while we may get lucky sometimes, in general people who can take on full-time-or-more, IETF-uncompensated, IETF roles are different from those of us who need to perform day jobs while doing IETF work in whatever fractional time, or spare time, is available. Requiring that the roles be full time reduces the number of possible candidates, which reduces Nomcom choices, etc. It also tends to reinforce all of the trends that lead to isolation of the IESG and IAOC from the community (I'll avoid explaining that hypothesis at length unless it becomes necessary). And the document explicitly allows the IAB and/or IETF Chair to sit in on IAOC meetings and teleconferences if (i) the IAB or IESG decide to appoint someone else to the more permanent positions (people who are expected to participate actively and consistently) and (ii) the relevant Chair decides, possibly on the advice of other IAOC members but without any requirement for IAOC consensus agreement, that attendance when a specific matter is being discussed is important. So the only differences between what you are arguing and what the document suggests are: -- You apparently think that the participation in the IAOC and Trustees of the two Chairs is so important --always-- that, if time is limited, they need to put those responsibilities ahead of everything else. The document proposes to let the individuals involved and the bodies on which they serve make that decision in a way that best serves the community and to review it as they deem necessary. -- While I certainly agree that there are some issues that will come before the IAOC and/or Trustees in which the direct involvement of one or both Chairs is important, I don't believe that is true of every discussion and every decision. Again, I think that decision should be left to the relevant individuals (who are free to look at IAOC or Trustee agendas and decide to sit in), to the relevant bodies, and to the IAOC (who can always specifically invite participation in a particular discussion), while your position effectively takes those decisions and turns them over to an organizing document. -- Conversely, some decisions and discussions of the IAOC and Trustees may involve topics for which the the IETF and IAB Chairs are neither particular qualified or particularly interested. Certainly Nomcoms are not considering in-depth financial planning skills or great experience with IPR issues (or interest in either) as primary considerations in selecting IETF Chairs or IAB members (and I would hope that they would continue to avoid doing that). Again, it seems to me to be better to let the incumbents in those roles sort out the tradeoffs and best choices with their respective bodies than to force a choice in the organizing documents. Having people in the IAOC and Trustee positions who want to do them and have the bandwidth to do so should strengthen those bodies (whether those people are the Chairs or not), rather than risking having a disinterested Chair serving because it a job that cannot be escaped. Finally, and I believe that the above arguments stand whether or not you believe this (and the choice is up to the IESG and IAB in any event), I have trouble accepting the unique position argument until we believe that those two people are serving on the IAOC/Trustees as individuals with no obligation to consult with the relevant bodies. I don't read BCP 101 as contemplating that and would find it extremely problematic if interpreted that way. If they are actually expected to represent the perspectives of the IAB and IESG, as I believe, then the Chairs aren't inherently more uniquely qualified than any other member of those bodies or, in principle, a non-member liaison who maintains a
Re: I-D Action:draft-klensin-iaoc-member-00.txt
I'm having troubles reconciling a couple of things: 1/ Recent discussion (different draft) on the importance of the IAOC implementing IETF (and IAB) policy and admin requirements; not having the IAOC *setting* those requirements; 2/ Suggesting that the IAB IETF Chairs should not be on the IAOC. As it stands the IETF Chair is in a unique position to understand all the requirements of the IETF community and IETF administrative activities. There isn't someone else who can step in: all other IESG members are tasked, as a primary responsibility, with looking after their particular areas. The IAB Chair similarly sits at the confluence of all the issues hitting the IAB, and is specifically responsible for tracking them so that they get addressed by the IAB. While the IAB Chair can, in theory, delegate actions on particular topics, it at least used to be the case that some tasks are too tricky or unappealing to get other involvement(too admin, not enough architectural content). And, even with successful delegation of individual tasks, the IAB Chair retains the perspective across all the activities -- technical, IANA, RFC Editor, etc. I'm not going to disagree that the jobs are heavily loaded, and that it's a problem for the IETF that the organization relies heavily on finding a solid candidate for each of these complex positions. However, I think taking them off the IAOC is *not* the place to start. It makes more sense to me to sort out the organizational challenges (of the IESG/IETF, and of the IAB) that cause overloading of these positions, and *then* see what makes sense in terms of identifying IAOC participation. Pulling these positions off the IAOC would succeed in weakening the IAOC, even as it increases the stress levels in the positions as the respective Chairs try to figure out what is going on with the administrative support for the balls they are trying to keep moving. My $0.02cdn Leslie. Brian E Carpenter wrote: Hi, Is this the correct list for discussing draft-klensin-iaoc-member? o workload and full-time positions Even without IAOC and Trustee roles, the IETF Chair and IAB Chair roles require considerable time and effort. This has been true for many years of the IETF Chair role. Indeed one of the main motivations for creating the IAOC and IAD roles was to tackle this. From personal experience, as the IETF Chair who bridged the changeover, there is no doubt in my mind that this changed the IETF Chair job from essentially impossible to reasonably possible. So it was a success in this respect. If anyone's interested in how I thought about the workload at that time, see: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-carpenter-ietf-chair-tasks The question I have (as I did when writing that draft) is whether any further organisational change would have a *significant* effect on the IETF Chair workload. More on that below. My feeling is that the IAB Chair role has grown in recent times, and not in the sense of being able to spend more time on Internet Architecture. That seems like a Bad Thing. To some extent this is a short term effect due to the need to reorganise the RFC Editor service, which is a clear IAB non-architecture responsibility. However, it generates the same question about organisational change. In addition, it is useful to clarify the role of the IAB and IESG representatives by making them (and the chairs, if different) non- voting liaisons. That statement doesn't seem to be justified by anything above. Why is it useful, and what is unclear about their present (voting) roles? I'm missing a few steps in the argument. ... This reduces the requirement that IAB and/or IESG members be selected for the specific types of expertise needed on the IAOC and Trustees. NomCom has major difficulty in this anyway. We need IAOC members with good technical and community understanding *and* the IAOC/Trustee skills. This seems essentially unfixable to me. Also, it isn't discussed in the draft that by removing two voting members, the IAOC quorum becomes quite a bit smaller and the concentration of power perhaps too great. Wouldn't we want to add at least one regular member, which would make the NomCom task even harder? o If one or both of the liaisons specified immediately above are not the IAB Chair or IETF Chair, those individuals have permanent liaison status with the IAOC (and Trustees): they are not expected to attend meetings on a regular basis, but may do so and may not be excluded from any meeting, even executive sessions. Two points on this: 1. One possible effect of this is to add two people to every IAOC or Trust meeting. That doesn't seem like workload reduction. 2. In any case, it seems to me to be unrealistic to imagine that an IETF Chair would drop out of IAOC participation; in fact I would regard it as downright irresponsible to do so. Being non-voting would perhaps
Re: I-D Action:draft-klensin-iaoc-member-00.txt
Hi, Is this the correct list for discussing draft-klensin-iaoc-member? o workload and full-time positions Even without IAOC and Trustee roles, the IETF Chair and IAB Chair roles require considerable time and effort. This has been true for many years of the IETF Chair role. Indeed one of the main motivations for creating the IAOC and IAD roles was to tackle this. From personal experience, as the IETF Chair who bridged the changeover, there is no doubt in my mind that this changed the IETF Chair job from essentially impossible to reasonably possible. So it was a success in this respect. If anyone's interested in how I thought about the workload at that time, see: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-carpenter-ietf-chair-tasks The question I have (as I did when writing that draft) is whether any further organisational change would have a *significant* effect on the IETF Chair workload. More on that below. My feeling is that the IAB Chair role has grown in recent times, and not in the sense of being able to spend more time on Internet Architecture. That seems like a Bad Thing. To some extent this is a short term effect due to the need to reorganise the RFC Editor service, which is a clear IAB non-architecture responsibility. However, it generates the same question about organisational change. In addition, it is useful to clarify the role of the IAB and IESG representatives by making them (and the chairs, if different) non- voting liaisons. That statement doesn't seem to be justified by anything above. Why is it useful, and what is unclear about their present (voting) roles? I'm missing a few steps in the argument. ... This reduces the requirement that IAB and/or IESG members be selected for the specific types of expertise needed on the IAOC and Trustees. NomCom has major difficulty in this anyway. We need IAOC members with good technical and community understanding *and* the IAOC/Trustee skills. This seems essentially unfixable to me. Also, it isn't discussed in the draft that by removing two voting members, the IAOC quorum becomes quite a bit smaller and the concentration of power perhaps too great. Wouldn't we want to add at least one regular member, which would make the NomCom task even harder? o If one or both of the liaisons specified immediately above are not the IAB Chair or IETF Chair, those individuals have permanent liaison status with the IAOC (and Trustees): they are not expected to attend meetings on a regular basis, but may do so and may not be excluded from any meeting, even executive sessions. Two points on this: 1. One possible effect of this is to add two people to every IAOC or Trust meeting. That doesn't seem like workload reduction. 2. In any case, it seems to me to be unrealistic to imagine that an IETF Chair would drop out of IAOC participation; in fact I would regard it as downright irresponsible to do so. Being non-voting would perhaps reduce formal responsibility, or even legal liability, but the IETF Chair should still read everything and debate everything. So I think the workload reduction is illusory. The IAB Chair might be able to step back from some matters, but not when the IAB's oversight areas (IANA and RFC Editor) are concerned. Bottom line: I don't see this change as producing a significant net gain, unless there are arguments that I've missed. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
