Re: [I18nrp] charter -01

[Peter Saint-Andre <[e-mail]>]

On 8/15/18 10:01 AM, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
> FWIW, 
> 
> On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 12:00 AM Phillips, Addison <[e-mail]
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi Peter,
> 
>     I like this evolution. A few comments.
> 
>     The liaison text is a little curious. It says that liaising isn't
>     "directly" in scope. Is that because the (almost certainly
>     necessary) liaising with folks like the UTC, W3C (especially I18N WG
>     :-)), ECMA, etc. will formally exist elsewhere? Maybe the charter
>     should more strongly acknowledge the need for coordination while
>     keeping the existing formal mechanisms intact. I'd suggest something
>     like:
> 
>     --
>     While formal liaison mechanisms with other standards organizations
>     (such as the Unicode Consortium) are not part of the directorate's
>     charter, there is expected to be occasional coordination with the
>     wider internationalization community that includes these other
>     standard's bodies.
> 
> 
> This is only my opinion, but I was on the IAB for three years and was
> the first IAB prime for the IAB's liaison oversight program
> (https://www.iab.org/activities/programs/iab-liaison-coordination-program/),
> when we set it up in about 2011, so I hope it's not super-wrong.
> 
> We/the IETF relies a lot on informal interaction with other SDOs. There
> are other SDOs that the IAB maintains formal liaison relationships with,
> listed at https://www.ietf.org/about/liaisons/, but those tend to be
> SDOs that we have a lot of interaction with, and/or who require a formal
> liaison relationship to get anything done. 
> 
> Basically, if an individual IETF participant can send email to another
> SDO, and get a useful response, that's the preferred path. The
> directorate itself can figure out when that's necessary, and whether the
> responses coming back are useful, with no other process needed. 
> 
> If that doesn't work in your situation, that's a good conversation to
> have with the IAB. I'd start with Mark Nottingham, who is the IAB
> liaison oversight program prime now, but just sending an e-mail to the
> IAB and asking them for help/guidance should work just fine. 
> 
> It's also useful to note that some SDOs and external bodies have
> liaisons to the IETF, with no corresponding IETF liaison in the other
> direction, so IETF participants can be as informal as is helpful, even
> if the responses coming back have to be approved at plenary meetings
> before they come back. 

What Spencer says rings true to me. IMHO it's not the directorate's job
to function as a liaison - in the IETF we have individual liaisons to
other SDOs (e.g., Mark Nottingham is the IETF's liaison to the W3C) who
are appointed or approved by the IAB. Certainly the directorate or
members thereof might provide advice and guidance to the IETF liaison or
to the IAB liaison shepherd with respect to internationalization, but
that doesn't meant the liaison function is directly in scope for the
directorate. Or so it seems to me.

Peter