Subject: Community Collaboration, versus Central Management

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 15:16:59 +0900

Folks,

Some thoughts for the Thursday night plenary:

What is the basic style of the IETF that we want? An obvious
distinction is between bottom up, versus top down. That is, initiative
and work coming from the community, versus initiative and direction
coming from a hierarchical authority

Both models have plenty of examples in the real world. Both models can
be made to work. Both models have their strengths and their
weaknesses. The one that is chosen needs to match the requirements of
the organization and the personalities of those participating in the
organization.

The IETF has always had a mixture of both. In the beginning, there was
DARPA funding and direction. You can't much more centralized than
that. However the organizational style for most activities was,
instead, a grass-roots approach. The basic style of the IETF has
tended to be that those who do specific work also initiate it and
direct it to its conclusion. The "central management" function used to
be for coordination, for general oversight, and for ultimate quality
control.

In other words, the authority role for the central management function
in the IETF has really been an adjunct, such as for catching errors
that managed to slip through. There is a hallowed tradition for such a
safety-net approach to design in the Internet -- for example, note the
rationale for the weak checksum of TCP.

This safety net role has been essential for imposing limits, and
eliminating unproductive and misguided efforts.

     However things have changed. That change was nicely summarized a
     couple of years ago by someone who is now an area director. He
     said that, really, working groups work for the area director. The
     IESG really makes the standards.

So let's be clear about the actual, strategic, historical effect of
IETF management in the real work of producing useful IETF
specifications:

    IETF management has never been responsible for initiating any
    successful work in the IETF.

    All successful work in the IETF has come from community
    initiative, that self-forms into a cohesive, productive group.

    IETF management can facilitate or impede such efforts, but it has
    no track record of replacing it with any sort of top-down model.

This responsibility for initiative and productivity has always rested
with the community. In fact it largely covers the organization and
process of the IETF, itself. What might be taken as process design by
the IETF's central management has in fact come from contributions and
established practise of the general community.

IETF management is an essential part of that community, but only a
part. The "leadership" of IETF management has really been the same as
for the rest of the community: individual leadership through excellent
collaboration.

    The real conceptual basis for the process design of the IETF has
    always been a reliance on diversity of contribution.

If a wide range of independent contributors participate in a decision,
the odds are pretty good that the decision will be viable. The
different agendas, needs, perspectives and styles of that diverse set
of participants ensure the viability of the result.

There is a very powerful robustness in diversity, if one can figure
out how to corral it into a collaborative process.

A critical danger in central management is an inherent fragility in
decision-making.  Real diversity is lost. This becomes even more
serious, as the central management becomes more homogeneous and more
isolated.

Some interesting and unfortunate cliche's have been making the rounds,
recently.

One is a repeated concern that the community should "trust" the IESG.
However we do not hear the balancing concern that the IESG should trust
the community.  Or that, in fact, what is really needed is to stop
talking about trust and start working in a collaborative manner.

Collaboration is about leveraging diversity through an open exchange.
Some of the best collaboration comes from the diversity of
disagreement.  And, yes, trust. Mutual trust.

If someone says they do not trust you because they usually disagree
with you, then they are missing this essential point.  And, indeed,
that appears to be a pervasive problem in the IETF today.

We have an IESG that acknowledges that it is overloaded, yet it seems
intent upon taking on more and more work.  We have some urgent,
strategic problems that will not go away and have shown no signs of
getting fixed for two years.

My own version of the urgent needs is:

   1.  Better quality work, where quality covers such things as
   utility and efficiency of the design.

   2.  More timely work, so its consumers get it when they need it.

   3.  More accountable lines (and processes) of IETF management, so
   that things happen predictably, appropriately, and in the best
   interests of the IETF community

   4.  Stable funding, so that the IETF can attend to its work without
   economic distraction.

It is time that we apply some very basic, simplistically rational
questions to any proposed change:

  1. Does a proposed change address an urgent, strategic IETF need
  that is otherwise posing a serious threat to the viability of the
  IETF?

  2. Does the proposed change build upon a model of community
  collaboration, or does it rely on isolated, central management?

  3. Is the proposed change based on well-understood practise that is
  known to be applicable to an IETF style of operation?

  4. Is the proposed change likely to permit stable IETF operation, or
  is it likely to be disruptive?

  5. Is the change likely to be compatible with the IETF culture that
  we profess?

  6. Is the change being pursued in a careful, incremental manner

  7. Is the change being modified according to community feedback? Is
  it being pursued in a way that develops community rough consensus?

No doubt there are more questions to ask, but the list is already too
long.

As you evaluate tonight's presentations and comments, please consider
these thoughts.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 16:21:04 +0900

Dave,

could you please quote people by name?

I certainly believe that I haven't said what you say below. I'd appreciate 
it if you give the person who said it the chance to explain him/herself, 
since this is just about 180 degrees different from my perception of the 
IESG's perception of reality.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 16:39:16 +0900

Harald,

HTA> Dave,

HTA> could you please quote people by name?

This will probably devolve into a yes-you-did, no-i-didn't exchange,
thereby nicely distracting us all from the focus of my posting.

>>      IESG really makes the standards.

This was said by Jon Peterson, in the IMPP working group, before he
became an area director.

>>      that appears to be a pervasive problem in the IETF today.

In a public mail thread concerning trust, you said that you do not
trust me because you disagree with me so often.

My mentioning these will probably be taken as a personal response, but
I made a point of not doing the citations in my original postings,
hoping to avoid this concern.

Did you have any comments about the constructive points in my posting,
rather than the points being offered as background?

d/

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 17:32:16 +0900

Dave,

I'm trying to give a constructive response near the end - and it turns out 
that a lot of the things you wish for match up with the things I have tried 
to start us executing..... those who wish to skip the name game can search 
for #POSITIVE....

> This was said by Jon Peterson, in the IMPP working group, before he

Thanks!

Frankly, I was so shocked by the statement that I wanted to go talk to the 
relevant AD and figure out where his head was at - asking the question of 
each of them in turn didn't seem optimal.

> trust me because you disagree with me so often.

Thanks for pointing this out, and giving me the chance of quoting what I 
said at the time.....

According to 
<http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/problem-statement/2003-June/002445.html
>, I said:

> "Trust networks" may be the wrong term too; while I don't trust Dave
> Crocker's proposals for action that much (I disagree with him too
> often!),  I do trust him to care about many of the same things I do - and
> we do have  a long history together. So he's part of my "network" in a
> way that many  others aren't - but calling it a "trust network" may be
> simplistic. (apologies for using you as a named example again, Dave!)

Google is wonderful.

> hoping to avoid this concern.

Thanks for coming forth with those.

I think the quote above illustrates well why I like to use quotes, and make 
source data for my assertions available where possible: I agree with a lot 
of what you say about the situation we want to have, but believe your 
statements about the current situation are incorrect. I think we're a lot 
closer to where you want to be than you claim we are.

> rather than the points being offered as background?

#POSITIVE

Since I have come off my adrenaline kick from seeing the first quote you 
quoted, I think I should go back to my preparations for tonight's plenary, 
but I'll attempt a response.....

>    utility and efficiency of the design.

Agreed. See the chartering of ICAR and the discussions we have there.

>    2.  More timely work, so its consumers get it when they need it.

Agreed. See the PROTO team for one example of trying to speed things up.
But the majority of a document's IETF time is still spent in the WGs.

>    interests of the IETF community

Agreed. However, we have chosen to build an organization that depends on 
human judgment, not mechanistic decision-making - and I think appropriately 
so. Humans are notoriously hard to predict, so we should be careful that 
our strife towards predictability does not interfere with other values we 
hold high. Again, the devil is in the details.

>    4.  Stable funding, so that the IETF can attend to its work without

Agreed, with the proviso that we also need a clear, understandable and 
accountable structure for handling the economic side of the IETF operation; 
that's the essence of the advcomm and adminrest documents.

I do believe our goals are compatible......

                       Harald

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 19:35:20 +0900

Harald,

HTA> Thanks for pointing this out, and giving me the chance of quoting what I
HTA> said at the time...

You might also want to consider how your posting was interpreted.

Of course, it's probably just me who has these erroneous reactions
from what you and other IESG members intend. I'm sure no one else has
such problems with their over- or mis-interpretation anything said by
folks on the IESG.

>> My own version of the urgent needs is:

I am hoping that folks will take my comments in the whole, rather than
feeling the need to do a step-by-step bookkeeping process that
"proves" we are or are not making all the right changes.

My intent was to suggest some perspective and questions for things
being proposed.

>>    interests of the IETF community

HTA> Agreed. However, we have chosen to build an organization that depends on
HTA> human judgment, not mechanistic decision-making

I cannot even guess what prompts the "however" in your response.  For
that matter, I am sorry but I did not see how the rest of your comment
related to the concern I was stating.

On the off-chance you are suggesting that the involvement of humans
means that we cannot seek to have -- and even to demand, and even
better to achieve -- a more predictable decision process, then we have
very different experiences with management processes.

/d

---

From: Yakov Rekhter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 08:10:50 -0800

Dave,

[clipped...]

> serious, as the central management becomes more homogeneous and more

On the subject of central management, quoting from the IESG Plenary on 
Wednesday:

    IESG Plenary/Open Mike
    
    Q: Two questions for both IAB and IESG - individual participation and
    consensus - are these still important? alternative is participation by
    companies or governments, and voting...  - we believe in these values
    up to point, at which point the IESG makes a decision - Harald
    semi-agrees that sometimes a decision is needed and the IESG makes 
    one, but does not agree that IESG can impose its will against a
    working group - but does IESG try to get community consensus when it
    makes a decision?

So it seems that the IETF traditional motto, "rough consensus and
working code" should be revised to make it clear that the "rough
consensus" goes only up to a certain point, but after that point
the IETF operates solely by a decree from the IESG.

Yakov.