Subject: Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc2031bis-05.txt> (The IETF-ISOC Relationship) to Informational RFC

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2019 12:41:32 -0700

Hello,
At 06:48 AM 08-07-2019, The IESG wrote:
>The IESG has received a request from the IETF Administrative Support Activity
>2 WG (iasa2) to consider the following document: - 'The IETF-ISOC
>Relationship'
>   <draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc2031bis-05.txt> as Informational RFC
>
>The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits final
>comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
>[email-masked] mailing lists by 2019-08-05. Exceptionally, comments may be

There is the following in Section 3: "Apart from the roles described 
below, the IETF and ISOC acknowledge that ISOC has no influence 
whatsoever on the  technical content of Internet Standards".   The 
statement about "no influence" is implausible given that last 
paragraph in Section 4 about the participation of ISOC employees as, 
for example, document editors.  Does that mean that their employer 
will not file any IPR disclosure if the case arises?  Is that aligned 
with the "highest ethical standards" stated in Section 7 of the 
contract [1] signed by the IETF LLC?

What is the relationship between RFC 2031 and this draft?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. 
https://www.ietf.org/media/documents/ietf-llc-isoc-comms-agreement-public.pdf

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 06:00:38 +0000

Hi SM,

I'm writing in my role as the Internet Society's CEO.

On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 12:41:32PM -0700, S Moonesamy wrote:

> There is the following in Section 3: "Apart from the roles described below,
> the IETF and ISOC acknowledge that ISOC has no influence whatsoever on the
> technical content of Internet Standards".   The statement about "no
> influence" is implausible given that last paragraph in Section 4 about the
> participation of ISOC employees as, for example, document editors.

Your interpretation appears to elide the qualifying "Apart from the
roles…" part of the sentence in asserting implausibility.  I'm unsure
what problem you see in the last ¶ of section 4, which explicitly
notes that ISOC employees participate in the process as individuals.
The Internet Society also has a staff policy about this, some remarks
about which I posted a while ago [1].

> Does that mean that their employer will not file any IPR disclosure
> if the case arises?

I don't understand this question in the context.  But I should think
it obvious that, in the unlikely event the Internet Society started
taking out patents on software inventions we suddenly started making,
Internet Society staff would be obliged to disclose such things in
exactly the same way everyone else around the IETF does.  Since
formally none of the participants in the IETF is acting as a
representative of anyone else (including their employers), ISOC
employees are no different.  The purpose of the bit in section 3 in
the draft under discussion is to make that point explicitly.

> Is that aligned with the "highest ethical standards" stated in
> Section 7 of the contract [1] signed by the IETF LLC?

Is _what_ so aligned?  I'm also unsure of the relevance of the
services agreement to which you refer, since it has nothing to do with
the technical content of Internet standards.  
 
> What is the relationship between RFC 2031 and this draft?

According to the header, RFC 2031 will be obsoleted by this draft.

[1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/Ugu6O_5tCnNzTUmVzIuhNFKPzbE

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO, Internet Society
[email-masked]
+1 517 885 3587

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 01:46:36 -0700

Hi Andrew,
>I'm writing in my role as the Internet Society's CEO.

Ok.

>about which I posted a while ago [1].

My reading of RFC 2031 is that it describes a 
main boundary condition without getting in the 
internal policies of ISOC.  One of the changes in 
this draft is that it includes some parts of an 
internal policy related to employees of an 
organization which the IETF is expected to 
disregard.  Why is it so important for the last 
paragraph of Section 4 to be included?

Commenting about implausibility, there is the 
following in the message which was referenced: 
"The overall idea is to try to draw a bright line between being
employed at the Internet Society, and being part 
of the formal machinery of the IETF".  In my 
opinion, the last paragraph of Section 4 also blurs that bright line.

>the draft under discussion is to make that point explicitly.

In my opinion, it is better to have some clarity 
now instead of ignoring the difficult questions 
and facing them if there is ever an issue in future.

>the technical content of Internet standards.

Are ethical standards contextual?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Christian de Larrinaga <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 10:02:35 +0100

Andrew,

In Footnote of the draft it implies ISOC affiliates are included in 
definition of Internet Society?

I'm pretty sure Chapters are not aware of this implication.

As they are independent bodies legally, subject to many jurisdictions 
around the world. I wonder if a post to chapter list to make them aware and 
contribute might be timely? Also Chapters cannot be bound by HR internal 
verbage.

So handling this issue entirely via an open draft across the entire 
community seems the authoritative way to go.

For non ISOC chapter folk. Chapters don't have a say in IETF funding 
decisions at ISOC and all participants if they engage at IETF do so 
individually. The relationship is similar to that with IETF with chapters 
holding elections for up to 3 trustee seats at ISOC. Chapters are almost 
all volunteer led, initiate and promote projects for an open Internet for 
everyone, and increasingly receive small grants from ISOC to help keep the 
wolf from the door. All IETFrs should consider their local chapter as their 
home for the other stuff we want to have the Internet we want.

/C

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 12:51:56 +0000

Hi,

Sorry for the top post, but I'm on my mobile. I'm writing as ISOC staff.

I am not an author or editor of the draft, so I'm not really in a position to state why the text is as it is. But I don't anyway see where the text includes any internal policy. Maybe you could say more. I similarly don't understand the blurring of the bright line, so perhaps you could say how.

I am struggling, also, to understand what the possible issue in the future could be. So I just don't know what there is to clarify about the IPR rules.

Finally, yes, some ethical standards are obviously contextual. My lawyer and my physician each have duties to me, but they are different duties.

It seems as though there is some implicit model you have in mind of some threat or problem here, but I can't understand what it is by implication. Perhaps you could state it plainly?

Best regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO of the Internet Society
Please excuse my clumbsy thums

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 12:53:49 +0000

Hi,

[Same role]

I don't see a footnote in the draft. Perhaps you could give me a better hint about the problematic text?  In any case, I'm not the editor of the draft and can't alter it.

Best regards,

A

---

From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 11:42:38 -0400

Hi Christian,

On 18 Aug 2019, at 05:02, Christian de Larrinaga <[email-masked]> wrote:

> In Footnote of the draft it implies ISOC affiliates are included in definition of Internet Society?
> 

Can you clarify what you mean by "footnote"?

I can't find the text you're referring to. I don't find the words "affiliate" or "chapter" in the draft at all, for example. You refer to a definition of Internet Society that I also can't find: it seems to me that the phrase is for used in the first three words of section 1 and isn't actually defined at all.

Are you rather suggesting that there's a reasonable inference that "ISOC" as used in the document naturally incorporates chapters and other organisations associated with ISOC, and that it would be as well to clarify that point with explicit text?

Thanks,

Joe

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 10:39:48 -0700

Hi Andrew,

Ok.

>I am not an author or editor of the draft, so I'm not really in a 
>position to state why the text is as it is. But I don't anyway see 
>where the text includes any internal policy. Maybe you could say 
>more. I similarly don't understand the blurring of the bright line, 
>so perhaps you could say how.

The following paragraph is from 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/Ugu6O_5tCnNzTUmVzIuhNFKPzbE

   "The fact that a large part of the funding of the IETF comes from ISOC,
    however, and that the IETF's legal existence is (still) inside ISOC,
    has sometimes led to discomfort about the ways staff operate within
    the IETF.  So last week, we adopted a new internal policy about staff
    participation in the IETF.  I won't post the whole thing here, mostly
    because it's an HR policy and I don't think it's a good idea to burden
    the IETF with such details, but it still seems worth highlighting a
    few things that you might notice from ISOC staff in the near future
    (because these are changes that will be visible)."

I gather that the HR policy is an internal policy.

The bright line gets blurry when affiliation is used as a matter of 
convenience.

>I am struggling, also, to understand what the possible issue in the 
>future could be. So I just don't know what there is to clarify about 
>the IPR rules.

I did not ask for a clarification of that.

>Finally, yes, some ethical standards are obviously contextual. My 
>lawyer and my physician each have duties to me, but they are different duties.

The usual practice is to apply similar ethical standards throughout 
an organization, e.g. an ABC policy.  A lawyer could have an 
additional set of rules of conduct to adhere to given his/her 
professional responsibilities.

>It seems as though there is some implicit model you have in mind of 
>some threat or problem here, but I can't understand what it is by 
>implication. Perhaps you could state it plainly?

The problem is that this draft is crafting an IETF statement for ISOC 
employees only.  That statement was not in the (previous) 
RFC.  Furthermore, there was a thread [1] in which explicit 
boundaries became a topic in itself.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/dzNIAlVcSfAFLCY5qTDPHLaVsHs

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 08:39:00 +1200

I'm sorry, but I'm simply not seeing an issue here.

>    Otherwise, the involvement of ISOC's employees in the IETF standards
>    process (e.g., as document editors or in leadership positions) is as
>    individual contributors rather than on institutional grounds.

That seems clear and complete to me. The IETF doesn't care what ISOC's
internal policy is about ISOC staff participation in an external activity
such as the IETF. The IETF simply states that if ISOC staff do participate,
they do so as individual contributors. (Which incidentally means that they
are subject to the IETF's IPR rules, but that is irrelevant to the present
document, even if it might in some theoretical case be an issue for ISOC
itself.)

I also don't see any issue for the ISOC Chapters. They are simply associations
of groups of ISOC *members*. I've been an ISOC member since 1992. That is
simply irrelevant to my participation in the IETF. I don't see any reason
to mention members or chapters here.

Regards
   Brian

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 14:08:26 -0700

> On Aug 18, 2019, at 1:39 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

I agree on both points.  We should treat ISOC employees like we treat employees from other companies.

Bob

---

From: Christian de Larrinaga <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 22:25:52 +0100

Hi Joe / Andrew,

Excuse top post ---

Sorry for the delay. It has been a very busy day out in the fields.

I was referring to
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/Ugu6O_5tCnNzTUmVzIuhNFKPzbE
that Andrew referenced. That has the footnote. [1]

[1] I think of the Internet Society as comprising not just the staff
and corporate existence of the Internet Society, but all the
directly-affiliated groups as well -- the chapters, different kinds of
members, SIGs, and so on.  Since the IETF LLC is affiliated with ISOC
and, while legally distinct, remains part of the Internet Society's
corporate structure, I think of the IETF as "part of" the Internet
Society too, but in a loose way that is similar to other parts of our
community.

I note now that is not referring to the draft. Apologies for the
confusion. I was on my mobile when I read and noted the point this morning.

best

Christian

> Can you clarify what you mean by "footnote"?
see above
> I can't find the text you're referring to. I don't find the words "affiliate" or "chapter" in the draft at all, for example. You refer to a definition of Internet Society that I also can't find: it…
see above

> Are you rather suggesting that there's a reasonable inference that "ISOC" as used in the document naturally incorporates chapters and other organisations associated with ISOC, and that it would be…
I need to read the draft itself to decide that. But given Andrew's own
interpretation if he stands by that in the text I quoted from the link
he provided then somewhere some clarification might be helfpufl.

> Joe
best Christian
-- 
Christian de Larrinaga

---

From: Christian de Larrinaga <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2019 22:44:09 +0100

Just read the draft again. I like it.

See inline detail comment.

> Are you rather suggesting that there's a reasonable inference that "ISOC" as used in the document naturally incorporates chapters and other organisations associated with ISOC, and that it would be…

The draft talks about ISOC employees
in last sentence para 4.

I think that suggests the draft is referring to ISOC itself rather than
affiliates. But then everyone contributes individually at IETF so I
don't think this needs further iteration.

best Christian

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 08:45:01 +0000

Hi,

Again, with my ISOC hat on.

> I gather that the HR policy is an internal policy.

Indeed, it is, and it is nowhere a part of the draft under discussion,
so I don't understand what the problem is _for this draft_.
 
> The bright line gets blurry when affiliation is used as a matter of

That seems to me to be implying something rather unpleasant without
coming out and making a claim.  If you are claiming that there is some
problem, I would appreciate it if you would come out and say what
problem you think there is.  Otherwise, I think you are smearing the
character of Internet Society staff participating in the IETF, without
any justification.  I don't especially care if people deprecate my
character, but I don't think the rest of the Internet Society staff
ought to be smeared that way.

> > future could be. So I just don't know what there is to clarify about the
> > IPR rules.
> 

It seemed to me you did.  But perhaps if you'd state plainly what
concern you have instead of asking apparently loaded or rhetorical
questions, it would be possible to address whatever concern you have.

> The usual practice is to apply similar ethical standards throughout an
> organization, e.g. an ABC policy.  A lawyer could have an additional set of
> rules of conduct to adhere to given his/her professional responsibilities.

Yes, and in this case Internet Society employees who are working as
part of the community on the technical content of IETF documents work
according to the same rules as anyone else participating in the IETF;
and Internet Society employees who are providing service to the IETF
under a services contract work according to the rules in the services
contract and high ethical standards to which the Internet Society
staff attempt to adhere in general.  Both of these are in the maximal
interest of the IETF.  It would appear, therefore, that the usual
practice is in effect, and unless you have something specific to say
about how that isn't the case I think there is no change needed to the
draft under discussion.

> employees only.

No, it is making explicit something that was possibly implicit in RFC
2031.  Speaking with my staff-member hat on, I will say that I think
the explicit clarity is useful.

> there was a thread [1] in which explicit boundaries became a topic in
> itself.
> 

That reference isn't very helpful, since it points to a message from
Ted Hardie having nothing to do with this topic.  My guess is you
might be referring to the message exchange between Mike StJohns and me
starting at
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/iVPkh0Vn49X9jZRjs6XRMAha2pQ.
I was under the impression that we had aired his suggestion, and while
Mike seemed to think that at least one ISOC staff member (me) should
either never participate as an individual, or should at least never
participate as an individual in process discussions (he made this
plain at
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/kSycGXCHUPbuOzi0DqhiIFm6nPo).
I concluded that I disagreed with him; I note that the other postings
in the (sub)thread appeared to as well.  Are you now saying you think
Mike's position (either 2 or 2') is correct?  (And if so, could you
just state it plainly, please?)

Best regards,

A

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2019 14:16:26 -0700

Hi Andrew,
>so I don't understand what the problem is _for this draft_.

I read that paragraph as related to an internal policy based on a 
message which was sent to this mailing list.  If you say that it is 
not related, I cannot do anything about it as I don't know what the 
actual internal policy is.  To be clear, I am not asking for details 
about any internal policy as I understand internal to be internal to 
an organization.

>coming out and making a claim.  If you are claiming that there is some

That is an opinion which I expressed.  It is not a claim that your 
organization is doing it as this Last Call is about a future relationship.

>problem you think there is.  Otherwise, I think you are smearing the

Let's say that Company A sends employees to participate in an IETF 
discussion.  A majority of the people involved in a controversial 
decision is from Company A.  If the employees from Company A did not 
disclose their affiliation, it would be difficult whether there could 
be a possible issue in future.  If that issue were to occur, the WG 
Chair will hear all sort of claims, e.g. Company B does that and the 
WG Chair did not say anything about it.

>ought to be smeared that way.

My interaction with other Internet Society employees within the IETF 
is most probably zero over the last few years as I don't recall 
having any discussion topics in common with them.  As all the IETF 
mailing list are archived and searchable, I'll leave it to any IETF 
participant to point out whether that is untrue.

>just state it plainly, please?)

I don't see it as being about whether the position is correct or 
not.  I unfortunately cannot state anything beyond that.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:43:46 -0400

Hi all,

I reviewed the messages in this thread and there do not seem to be any changes required for the document to proceed through IESG evaluation.

Regards,
Alissa

> On Jul 8, 2019, at 9:48 AM, The IESG <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please retain the beginning of
> the Subject line to allow automated sorting.
> 
> Abstract
> 
> 
>   This document summarises the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) -
>   Internet Society (ISOC) relationship, following a major revision to
>   the structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) in
>   2018.  The IASA was revised under a new "IASA 2.0" structure by the
>   IASA2 Working Group, which changed the IETF's administrative, legal,
>   and financial structure.  As a result, it also changed the
>   relationship between the IETF and ISOC, which made it necessary to
>   revise RFC 2031.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The file can be obtained via
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc2031bis/
> 
> IESG discussion can be tracked via
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc2031bis/ballot/
> 
> 
> No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.
> 
> 
> 
>

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 17:59:48 -0700

Hello,

Andrew and I had a short conversation.  I would like to thank him for 
the explanation which he provided.  I consider the matter as resolved.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy