Subject: Scenario C or Scenario O ? - I say let us go for C !

From: "Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 11:53:00 +0200

So what we need is more people from the IETF community to speak up
and tell us what they think. This is an important decision we (as IETF)
need to make, and we better make it sooner than later. 

I am surprised to see so few people react. So may I ask: 

  ALL IETFers, PLEASE DO REVIEW the scenario O and C writeups
  and please do send your feedback so that we (as IETF) can make
  a sound decision that is supported by the majority of our community.

Maybe it was/is not clear yet where I stand myself.

So here it is:

>From what I have seen/read sofar, my preference is to go for Scenario C. 
Yes, Scenario O seems somewhat simpler. 
Yes, Scenario O seems acceptable today.

But I seriously believe that in the long run, a Scenario C is the better
and more solid option.

My personal view on this is that if we just look at TODAY, then I can say
that I can live with scenario O. But in the future, we could end up in the
same or a similar boat as where we are today (see my response to Scott
Bradner on 4th of Sept to this list for details). At that future time I may
not be around anymore. But I want to create the "best future for my children"
so to speak. That is why I am prepared to take the risks that we have
described in Scenario C. We need to work more on that to understand them
better and to take precautions and measure to mitigate them. We need to
work/discuss with ISOC what that means in terms of our continued close 
relationship (ISOC, IETF and also IASF) and clearly document that. We all
have the same goals when it comes to standardizing the Internet Protocols.

Most important to me... we better choose one of the scenarios, so we
can start working on the details and implementation!

Again, please post your comments/concerns and/or preferences.

Thanks,
Bert

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From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:36:36 -0400

Hi Bert,

Both you and Ted have posted preferences for Scenario C that, to me, 
seem to say "We will eventually have to go to Scenario C, anyway, so 
we should undertake that effort today rather than leaving it for 
later."  This might be a compelling argument if it were clear to me 
that we will need to move to Scenario C in the future.  Could you 
explain why you think that would be desireable?  What are the 
practical advantages that you see to having two separate corporations 
(ISOC and the IASF), one responsible for fund raising and some 
standards-related tasks, and the other responsible for our 
administrative support?

Personally, I see the Scenario C structure (which involves the IASF 
having a huge financial dependence on ISOC with only few other 
weak/indirect links between the two organizations) as much less 
likely to be stable long-term than the structure proposed in Scenario 
O (a single corporation, ISOC, responsible for administrative support 
and fund raising).

In my personal opinion, it will be much better (cheaper, less risky, 
more likely to succeed) for the IETF to deal with a single support 
organization that handles both our administrative support activity 
and our fund raising.  This will clarify and strengthen our fund 
raising efforts,  allow the IETF to deal with a single corporate 
entity, and avoid the need to deal with a weak/confusing/one-sided 
link between the corporation that performs our fund raising and the 
corporation that handles our administrative budget.  This reasoning 
leads me to a preference for either Scenario O or Scenario D (the 
main difference, in my opinion, being whether we go with ISOC or 
found a new corporation).

I think that using an existing corporation (ISOC) will be much 
cheaper and less risky than setting up a new corporation, and I don't 
see any reason to believe that our chances of success are any higher 
with a new corporation  than they would be with the corporation that 
we created ~10 years ago.  ISOC has already gone through the initial 
establishment phase and is now fiscally sound and stable.  This has 
many practical benefits for the IETF, such as ISOC's proven ability 
to get a substantial credit line to support an IETF transition.  This 
leads me to choose Scenario O as the most likely stable and 
successful end-point for our efforts.

Could you explain in more detail why you believe that Scenario C 
would be a better end-point?

Margaret

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 06:30:44 -0500

From: "Margaret Wasserman" <[email-masked]>
To: "Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 8:36 AM
Subject: Re: Scenario C or Scenario O ? - I say let us go for C !

> practical advantages that you see to having two separate 
> corporations (ISOC and the IASF), one responsible for fund raising 
> and some standards-related tasks, and the other responsible for our 
> administrative support?

There was also the assumption that if we go with O and it turns out 
that we should have gone with C, it will be just as slow and painful 
getting to this point again as it was the first time.

Why would this be true? It's at least as likely that we would say "we 
should have made the other choice" and start moving to C - a shorter 
distance that it is now.

My non-random sample of second marriages is that they tend to either 
last or end more quickly than first marriages. That's a bad analogy, 
but I think the principle applies ("we've been here before and 
changing things was the right thing to do, so why wait now?").

Spencer