Subject: Re: I-D Action:draft-klensin-iaoc-member-00.txt

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:42:12 +1200

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