Re: [Ianaplan] control and negotiation (was Re: draft-ietf-ianaplan-icg-response-02 working group last call)

[Suzanne Woolf <[e-mail]>]

Colleagues, 

I want to thank Miles and Andrew for this exchange; it suggests a potentially useful insight on where we might be talking past each other.

Much of this conversation, and a number of other apparent disagreements inside the WG, seem to me to come from a disconnect between a) people who have experience of the IETF and its structures because they do work in the environment the IETF creates and b) people who don't, whose knowledge of the processes and activities described in draft-ietf-ianaplan are less immediate.

To many IETF participants with experience in getting work done within the organizational structures we're talking about, there are some fairly clear assumptions that can easily be made about the role of the WG and of the IETF and related groups. One is that the WG's job, per the charter, is not to tell the IAB and the IAOC exactly what to say, to the ICG or ICANN or anyone else; it's to establish consensus on the desired outcomes and basic tradeoffs, so the consensus can be implemented by contracts, other means of establishing shared understanding such as liaisons and MoUs, business processes of the IANA, procedural documents that may be RFCs, etc. Another is that the IAB and the IAOC can reasonably be trusted to do this because it's what they're asked and chosen by the community to do, by a nomcom chosen from the community and under criteria the community has every opportunity to influence. It's also generally assumed-- because we've seen it over the years-- that the IAB and the IAOC have every reasonable help in doing their jobs from lawyers and other professionals. Some of the confidence is from feeling we know the people and the processes that gave them their current responsibilities; some is because there are appeal and recall processes also defined in case we got it really wrong. 

And some of the confidence comes from understanding that a failure of this process, or the IETF/ICANN relationship, would be a massive, painful inconvenience, best avoided in any way reasonably possible-- but not an existential threat to the ability of the IETF to do its work.

It seems to me that many of the participants here (Andrew, Eliot, Leslie, Brian, etc.) have shared these underlying assumptions, so that even when they've disagreed on the specific outcomes we're looking for, they've agreed on the level of detail and the tradeoffs ("need to have" vs. "nice to have") that should be specified in this document and within this WG's charter. 

It also seems that other participants have wanted to have an entirely different conversation, on first principles such as the need for lawyers to negotiate contracts.

On Nov 4, 2014, at 8:22 PM, Miles Fidelman <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 04, 2014 at 04:51:12PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
>> 
>>> When it comes to legal, contractual, and governance matters - the IETF is
>>> more than it's working groups, it includes the IAB, IESG, IAOC, etc (as
>>> components of the IETF); the ISOC (as "parent" or whatever of the ISOC); and
>>> arguably the "protocol parameters community" is more than just the IETF.
>>> These perspectives are reflected, at best, informally, in the charter and
>>> discussions of the WG.
>> It seems to me that the IETF has managed to set up all those
>> organizations except for ISOC.  So what about the IETF makes you think
>> that it is incapable of drawing conclusions about organizations and
>> institutional arrangements?
> 
> I'm not.  I'm observing several things:
> - the outside world (or the plain observer) does not see the granularity - and things like "the IETF will ask the IAOC to conclude supplemental agreement" are just incredibly murkey reading
> - the WG charter has excluded a bunch of topics that one would expect to see in a complete response to the ICG RFP - particularly legal and contractual stuff
> - the WG charter seems to focus on a subset of the issues requested by the RFP
> - other components of the IETF - like the IAOC, the IAB are not really involved in the discussion (e.g., nobody seems to want to have any lawyers involved in the discussion) - and I have yet to see any discussion of how those components/perspectives are going to be incorporated into the formal response to the ICG

As above, and I think Andrew said but perhaps not quite explicitly enough: the IAB and the IAOC are trusted to get the implementation details covered in a reasonable, workable way because it's the job they were appointed to, after consideration of their qualifications for it; because of past experience, including some difficult moments in other relationships of the IETF with IANA and RFC Editor operators; and because the community can kick them out if we really don't like what they're doing.

What's become clear in this exchange and others is that those assumptions are not making it into the document, and remain opaque for those not experienced with the processes and structures.

For example, I'm not worried about whether the IAOC will consult real lawyers when it comes to drafting contract language, and no, it's not because I think real lawyers aren't needed. It's because I know they are, if the appropriate vehicles for doing what we want turn out to include contracts, and that the IAOC doesn't need you or me to tell them so, they need us to tell them what we want them to accomplish with the help of those lawyers.

I think a lot of the experienced IETF participants here aren't worried about it either.

But we need to be concerned that you are.

>> I note that the IAB's opinion is explicitly called out in the existing
>> draft; and speaking with my IAB hat on just for a moment, I can tell
>> you that the IAB is in fact paying attention to this document and that
>> it cannot be published with the claim that the IAB agrees with it
>> unless the IAB does in fact agree.
>> 
>> The IAOC, of course, is going to need to be able to implement such
>> advice as the WG delivers.  So we can expect that the diligent members
>> of the IAOC will also undertake relevant review.
> 
> But where are the members of the community being engaged in that discussion.  This all sounds more like "we'll wave our hands over things and adjust/bless them." That's not an open process.

This *is* "where….the members of the community [are] being engaged in that discussion." This seems to be preferable to having everyone on this mailing list in the room negotiating contract language, even assuming further contract language is needed beyond what we have today. Forgive me if that sounds flippant, but I think there's a serious underlying question there too: at what point do you think it's appropriate for the community to say "OK, guys, here's the outcomes we want, the basics of how to get there, and some tradeoffs we regard as important, now *you* go do *your* job of implementing it" to the people it's appointed?

>> It strikes me that there seem to be some who would like to claim that
>> more grown-up or professional or serious or what-have-you procedures
>> -- basically, "more like I would prefer" -- are needed for this
>> effort.  But the argument for that conclusion appears to be simply
>> repetition of the claim.  One needs rather a better argument than
>> abusive _ad hominem_ ("wishy washy" and so on) to be convincing.
> 
> Well, how about the WG charter limiting the scope of discussions to a subset of the ICG RFP?

The one that assumes the IAOC and the IAB will do their jobs, and that we'll be able to tell if they're not?

I'll agree that that could be better documented. The charter reads just fine to me, given the assumptions I'm comfortable making from experience, but that doesn't mean it's easily explained to others. I'm tentatively convinced that there should be more in the final deliverable from the IETF to the ICG on why the IETF consensus is suitable in scope and suitable as instructions to the IAOC (which is responsible for contractual relationships on behalf of the IETF, including the RFC Editor, the IANA, and the secretariat) and the IAB (which has overall responsibility for those functions on behalf of the IETF, and is expected to consult with the IETF on those responsibilities, as it has here).

But I think it would be a failure in a number of ways for this WG to spend its time on "legal and contractual stuff," or for the IAOC and the IAB to be bound by the results if we did.


best,
Suzanne