Subject: Options for IETF administrative restructuring

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:16:57 -0400

[This is a re-send of a message I sent last night; that message is
  caught in the list moderation queue because the attachment put
  it over the message size limit.  It should appear on the list...
  sometime.  The Internet-Draft may appear in the archive before
  then.  In the meantime, there are rumours of some possible math
  errors, so it's quite possible an -01 version will appear very
  quickly :-)   -- Leslie.]

Hello, IETF community.

Attached is the document we promised you in San Diego - a report from
our consultant, Carl Malamud, which lays out a series of options and
recommendations for moving forward with the IETF administrative
restructuring process, according to the recommendations laid out
in RFC3716 (the Advisory Committee report).  It has been submitted
to the Internet Drafts repository and should be showing up there
shortly.

Some important things to note:

THIS IS NOT A DOCUMENT TO BE READ IN ISOLATION.
Minimally, reviewing the Advisory Committee report (RFC3716) is
necessary to understand the context of the proposals laid out in
this draft.

THIS IS NOT YET AN IETF DECISION.
That will be taken later, based on your input and IETF rough consensus.

THIS IS NOT THE IESG/IAB's RECOMMENDATION.
Our recommendation will come later, based on your input and the
evolution of our thinking.

THIS IS NOT AN ISOC POSITION.
The document describes potential relationships of the IETF
administrative activity and ISOC.  However, the document is written
as a proposal for IETF discussion -- the ISOC Board has not been asked
to formulate a position on supporting one or any of these proposals; we
need to have that discussion as it becomes clearer what the IETF wants
in its future.

This IS, however, the culmination of many, many hours of information
gathering and a near-infinite number of conversations by Carl Malamud,
attempting to give the best basis on which the IETF could make a
decision that he could within the timeframe given.

We encourage all interested IETF participants to read the report most
carefully, and give feedback on it - on the IETF list for public
discussion, directly to Carl or the IETF and IAB chairs if you want to
make off-list comments.

FURTHER STEPS

The next steps in this process depend on the community feedback and
whether we can gauge a consensus of the IETF on this mailing list. What
we think is reasonable so far is:

- Have a public discussion on the IETF list on the options presented in
the draft

- By early September, the IESG and IAB will attempt to distill a set of
recommendations that we think capture a reasonable consensus of the
community, and publish this as an internet-draft, which will be revised
over the next month, possibly several times, based on further
discussions

- By late September, we emit a Last Call on this set of recommendations,
if we deem that we have a reasonable consensus for the proposals

- By late October, if the IETF community still shows consensus, we will
declare that we have a decision, and will start executing based on that
decision.

In order to be able to move rapidly when we go into the "execution"
phase, we may initiate some activities of a "fact-finding" nature - such
as investigating possible suppliers of services and candidates for the
positions we envisage filling - before that, but irrevocable decisions
will await IETF consensus.

Please read the attachment - please comment - please THINK.

While this in itself should not change the IETF standards process at
all, support functions are important to the IETF.

We need to take the time to get this one right.

                     Leslie and Harald.

-- 

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                                    -- ThinkingCat
Leslie Daigle
[email-masked]
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---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:19:43 -0400

Leslie and Harald,

I would like to make one suggestion about this process.  For 
suggestions about substance, I will, of course, wait for the 
final -00 version of the draft.   This note is deliberately 
being sent before I have done so because I don't want my remarks 
to be biased by how I feel about its specific content.

There was considerable confusion in San Diego, and earlier, 
induced by large numbers of sub-discussions, with different, 
sometimes designated, groups of people holding discussions and 
not having access to each other's comments.  Harald responded to 
comments about this during the plenary by indicating that, once 
the draft was posted, everything would be public.

So I would like to suggest that any discussions within or among 
the IAB and IESG, or subsets of them, or between them and other 
groups, take place on mailing lists whose archives are public 
and/or which can be subscribed to (even if only on a read-only 
basis) by interested members of the community.

The key strategic decisions here (as distinct from the fine 
details) have to be made with the informed consent of the IETF 
community.   To me, that implies that all of the options and 
their pros and cons have to be on the table: after the fact, 
there should not be even a suspicion that the choice was 
influenced by discussions of only a reduced set of options.

I note in particular that your first "next step" reads "Have a 
public discussion on the IETF list on the options presented in 
the draft".   I think that is exactly correct iff the community 
is reasonably assured that _all_ of the plausible options have 
been identified, and fairly described, in the draft.  I hope and 
trust that is the case, but any suspicions, engendered by 
private discussion, that some options have been excluded from 
discussion by excluding them from the draft, would be extremely 
harmful and should be avoided.

As you said, we need to take the time to get this right.  We 
also need to be sure that the community emerges from the process 
confident that all of the options have been fairly considered in 
the process of selecting the right one.

thanks,
    john

--On Thursday, August 26, 2004 11:16 AM -0400 Leslie Daigle 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...

> restructuring process, according to the recommendations laid
> out in RFC3716 (the Advisory Committee report).  It has been
> submitted to the Internet Drafts repository and should be >...

---

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:22:20 -0400

John,

We are in agreement that key strategic decisions have to be made
with the informed consent of the community.  Harald and I have
made the commitment to put as much on the table as is possible
to have a rational open discussion that should come before that consent
phase.  That's the commitment that brought this document out,
and it will continue to surface material input if, as, and when
it comes to light.

With respect to this specific point:

 > I note in particular that your first "next step" reads "Have a public
 > discussion on the IETF list on the options presented in the draft".   I
 > think that is exactly correct iff the community is reasonably assured
 > that _all_ of the plausible options have been identified, and fairly
 > described, in the draft.  I hope and trust that is the case, but any

To the best of my knowledge, the set of known scenario classes
are described in the document.  And I do expect that the public
discussion will help to refine the scenarios that are presented, and
determine whether there are other classes of scenarios that need to
be considered.

Although the scenarios are labelled "A" through "D", this is not meant
to be a "multiple choice exam question" :-)

Leslie.

John C Klensin wrote:
> Leslie and Harald,
> 
> I would like to make one suggestion about this process.  For suggestions 
> about substance, I will, of course, wait for the final -00 version of 
> the draft.   This note is deliberately being sent before I have done so 
> because I don't want my remarks to be biased by how I feel about its 
> specific content.
> 
> There was considerable confusion in San Diego, and earlier, induced by 
> large numbers of sub-discussions, with different, sometimes designated, 
> groups of people holding discussions and not having access to each 
> other's comments.  Harald responded to comments about this during the 
> plenary by indicating that, once the draft was posted, everything would 
> be public.
> 
> So I would like to suggest that any discussions within or among the IAB 
> and IESG, or subsets of them, or between them and other groups, take 
> place on mailing lists whose archives are public and/or which can be 
> subscribed to (even if only on a read-only basis) by interested members 
> of the community.
> 
> The key strategic decisions here (as distinct from the fine details) 
> have to be made with the informed consent of the IETF community.   To 
> me, that implies that all of the options and their pros and cons have to 
> be on the table: after the fact, there should not be even a suspicion 
> that the choice was influenced by discussions of only a reduced set of 
> options.
> 
> I note in particular that your first "next step" reads "Have a public 
> discussion on the IETF list on the options presented in the draft".   I 
> think that is exactly correct iff the community is reasonably assured 
> that _all_ of the plausible options have been identified, and fairly 
> described, in the draft.  I hope and trust that is the case, but any 
> suspicions, engendered by private discussion, that some options have 
> been excluded from discussion by excluding them from the draft, would be 
> extremely harmful and should be avoided.
> 
> As you said, we need to take the time to get this right.  We also need 
> to be sure that the community emerges from the process confident that 
> all of the options have been fairly considered in the process of 
> selecting the right one.
> 
> thanks,
>    john
> 
> 
> 

--

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 Aug 2004 19:54:38 +0000

leslie,

you wrote, in response to john:

> made the commitment to put as much on the table as is possible ...

let me quote from california's sunshine law:

	The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the
	agencies which serve them.  The people, in delegating authority,
	do not give their public servants the right to decide what is
	good for the people to know and what is not good for them to
	know.  The people insist on remaining informed so that they may
	retain control over the instruments they have created.

now of course, "ietf" != "california", but the case is almost parallel,
in that you and harald are representing a lot of engineers and companies,
who accept the gift of your nonrenumerated representation because they
("we") believe that it's in our best interests to have you trying to
make good things happen on our behalf.  if i havn't said it often enough
or lately, let me say it now -- THANK YOU!

however, i am uncomfortable with some of the chaos around the reorg, and
most of my discomfort is related to disclosure.  please find a way to do
more of the negotiations out in the open.  there are very few "ietf special
interests" whom i respect or trust enough to be comfortable knowing that
they're being told things, or being allowed to make proposals, that the
public (that's me) isn't directly aware of.

paul