[Iasa20] IASA 2.0 minutes

[Alissa Cooper <[e-mail]>]

Raw minutes from Martin Thomson.

> 
> 
> IASA 2.0 IETF 98 Vevey 1 & 2
> 
> 
> # Joe Hall - Report from Virtual Workshops
> 
> Joe described how he and Jean tried to organize issues and rank them
> in terms of importance.
> 
> Joe shared an overview of the organizational structure (too many boxes
> here to summarize).
> 
> A number of structural issues were described, particularly the
> relationship between IETF and ISOC.  Joe identified several issues
> with the delineation between the organizations.
> 
> Issues with funding sources for IETF activities were outlined.  Joe
> provided pointers to drafts by Jari and Leslie on these subjects.
> 
> The staffing issue was raised.
> 
> Finally, the internal IAOC organizational structure was mentioned.
> 
> 
> # Olaf Kolkman - ISOC Contributions
> 
> ISOC gives ~ $2.3M (2017) and covers IETF budget shortfalls on
> occasion.  About the same amount comes from the other IETF revenue
> sources. ISOC charges some of its activities back to the IETF.
> 
> Olaf described the ISOC community diversification and outreach
> programs, including the IETF journal, ARNP, mentoring. Regional
> diversification. Miscellaneous other things.
> 
> 
> # Jari Arkko - IASA Challenges (and Opportunities)
> 
> Jari made some observation on finances, its health and trends
> affecting it. He noted that this indicates a need for change.
> 
> Jari observed that the structure had some problems and he identified
> some specific problems.
> 
> 
> # Alissa Cooper - Summary Statement
> 
> Alissa expanded on the complexities that were not captured in the
> schematic we were shown.
> 
> Alissa suggested that we keep funding and administration separate.
> 
> Alissa contends that the structure doesn’t allow for the sort of
> accountability we might want.
> 
> Alissa asked that people try to help formulate ways of approaching
> solutions to these problems.
> 
> 
> # Mic Line
> 
> Lou Berger - Where does the Trust fit in?
> 
> Alissa - The trust is obviously implicated by this.  There simply
> wasn’t enough room on the slide to include a box for the trust.  The
> report from the workshop includes it.
> 
> Lou - The trust should be part of the discussion.
> 
> Alissa - Definitely.
> 
> Andrew Sullivan - Do we make tiny changes, or a big change.  The
> structure is too weak.  It needs very, very significant changes.  It
> overloads a number of positions in a way that it shouldn’t.  Someone
> involved in the original design said that “It has to be the IAB chair
> because they have all the state”.  My response is that this is a
> weakness and we should not route all the one person - we would reject
> a technical architecture that had a magic box at the centre that did
> everything.
> 
> Ted Hardie - Focus on the single individual is a risk. The magic box
> issue is core to this.  Is this the right set of connections.  I say
> no.  All of our data is coloured as a consequence of the structure of
> the organization.  We need more than a refactoring, but need
> restructuring.  This is likely a lot of work.
> 
> Harald Alvestrand - I like hearing my own voice. The trust was thrust
> upon us from certain quarters, and we could have added another label
> to the IAOC. We wanted for a few things to not happen when we set this
> up.  “If you have to do work, then you are doing it wrong.” was a
> principle.  We put one person in to handle contracts.  Then that
> person needed to take orders from someone, other than the community as
> a whole.  So the IAOC was created for that purpose.  We did not want
> the IAOC to become a power centre, so we put the chairs in so that
> there was no question about it being a power centre, it was another
> chore for those chairs.
> 
> Jonne Soininen - We were asked if we should consider small tweaks or a
> bigger overhaul was asked.  Maybe we should talk about the target and
> let that drive the decision. We need to ask what organization we might
> want.  It’s a very different scenario to what we had in that time.  We
> need to ask how the IETF has changed over those years.  Where we used
> to ask for volunteers, we find more professionals being involved.
> 
> Jon - What do you think the target should be?
> 
> Jonne - Some of the things were done in the design of the time,
> looking at that does that still fit. I don’t know what the target is.
> The situation warrants review.  It’s 12 years and the target we had 12
> years ago doesn’t exist anymore (“do we still have the fate in our
> hands”).
> 
> Jon - There is some question about whether we do have the fate in our hands.
> 
> Cullen Jennings - Speaking for Ward.  We sponsor both the ISOC and the
> IETF.  We would like those to be very separable.  That’s how we manage
> things internally. We would like to sponsor the IETF.  We would prefer
> entirely separate organizations that work together.
> 
> Leslie Daigle - The reason that the IAB chair is on the IAOC is that
> they are plugged into all the IAB activities.  The IAB chair and IETF
> chairs are two peas in a pod.  I don’t think that solving the
> overloading of those individuals is a responsibility of the body they
> represent.  I was the first IAB chair on the IAOC, but then had a long
> gap before I later joined the IAOC.  In that time, the world changed a
> lot.  We did not have the RFC editor contract, we were only starting
> with the secretariat contract.  We did a good job in 2005, but that
> doesn’t need to take anything away from looking at this carefully.  I
> think we need significant changes.  We didn’t have experience in 2005,
> we have a lot more now in those more mundane things.
> 
> Lucy Lynch - Echoing Harald and Leslie.  We need to get a level above
> this and look at the reasons for the design.  What do we still want.
> I still want us to be mostly volunteer.  We need an independent
> relationship with our funding sources.  How many organizations
> reorganize every 6 months.
> 
> Jason Livinggood - Echo Cullen.  Far easier to have separation.  Far
> easier to explain to finance and accounting. I would echo Lucy, 12
> years is a long time for any organization.  If this were an aeroplane,
> we’d be at the outer limits of the design envelope. We need a clean
> slate design.  The time is right to do that now.
> 
> Bob Hinden - This chart reminds me of the analogy of paving the
> cowpaths.  The structure we have has evolved. The original design was
> successful in that way.  I’m sure we could do it better, but we need
> to think hard about what sort of organization we want to be.  Going to
> paid staff isn’t a good idea, because those staff will run the
> organization and the community has less of a say.  See how the W3C
> operates, which is the other extreme, and they are having
> organizational issues. We wanted to be self-governing, and we got
> that, but we struggled to get enough volunteers to run this process.
> 
> Eric Rescorla - Where is the P-CSCF? I was there when this was
> designed.  It as a reasonable design at that time given those
> constraints.  The principles haven’t changed, but the environment has.
> It’s clearly time for some sort of refactor.  There isn’t much danger
> of the paid staff running things.  The W3C have paid staff as part of
> the technical mix and the secretariat don’t do that now.  It would be
> much better (as Cullen said) as a donor, to have separate pots for
> specific things, rather than donating into some global pool that is
> then redistributed.
> 
> Kathy Brown - I sign everything and am legally responsible. The
> workshops were excellent.  ISOC has deep commitment to the IETF.  We
> feel that we are partners.  There are deep-seated relationships.  This
> structure is odd.  You have an activity inside a company that exists
> inside of a non-profit.  The IETF rightly wants to be independent and
> also sits inside an organization that makes its own legal decisions,
> which complicates things.  ISOC are fully committed to be partners as
> you explore this issue, including the big funding issue.
> 
> Alissa Cooper - I want to come back to some issues.  Volunteer-lead
> activity.  Agree with ekr, we can rely on this remaining
> administrative only.  It seems quite clear that the bulk of the
> community isn’t interested in taking on the bulk of the administrative
> tasks.  If we are looking to attract the high quality engineers, those
> people won’t be suited to admin tasks, nor will be they be inclined to
> do that.  The participant base isn’t particularly well-suited to that
> task.  Independence from funding sources.  Are we independent from
> them now?
> 
> Lucy - Distinguish between the volunteer org and orgs run by
> volunteers.  We need to be able to have volunteers to influence the
> process.  Network setup is volunteers and paid staff, but we have what
> we have because volunteers are active in the process.  We want
> self-determination and we need smart hands to help accomplish those
> tasks.  On funding, I would have to think about that.  When we did
> this in 2005, we wanted to ensure that we never had a partnership
> arrangement rather than an ownership arrangement.  Now we have a
> partnership that needs renegotiation.
> 
> Leslie - Eric captured my thoughts on the volunteer side of things.  I
> appreciate how Lucy is characterizing things. We need to rearrange as
> necessary.  We can’t let that preclude us organizing as we see fit.  I
> would like to know who is directing our communications plan.  It’s not
> an IAOC thing.  The IETF chair has to do that now.  The funding
> challenge is that we understand how we represent ourselves so that
> others who might engage can understand it so that they can contribute
> time effort and money.
> 
> Jari - No one is suggesting that the community would lose control, but
> more that we have imperfect tools for that.  I think that we will
> still have a board, and they will still be Nomcom appointed.  What is
> the goal?  It could be the same goal as what we had way back: gain
> control of our administrative destiny.  Let’s do the resign so that we
> keep the control.  We’re already paying people to do this work, but we
> need control.
> 
> Dave Crocker - There are lots of issues, which could be overwhelming
> and we could do badly if we don’t organize the ideas.  We should look
> for things not to do.  e.g., People over in ISOC that we don’t manage.
> In some cases, it might be valuable to be involved, but others not.
> We don’t do performance evaluations for AMS staff, we provide input,
> but it’s a contractual arrangement.  We hire ISOC for several tasks in
> the same way.  ISOC is family and family arrangements are interesting.
> It always produces unexpected effects.
> 
> Jon - We should talk about the target as a way to overcome the mess of problems.
> 
> Paul Hoffmannnnnnnnn - Communications struck a chord with me.  If we
> want the outside world to engage, we need to invest in telling the
> world about what we do.  ICANN doesn’t understand us very well, for
> example.  Think about how we communicate this to the community, who
> might not be engaged in this process, but still care that the IETF
> continue to exist.
> 
> Ted - My target here is an effort to change these interfaces so that
> the people who do the tasks, are doing the tasks that they are best
> suited to do.  We wasted two years of Andrew’s talent as a former IAB
> chair.  We wasted his time on something for which he was not selected
> for.  This hasn’t been good for our organization, or the individuals.
> Refactoring the organization so that we can make selections that fit
> the roles.
> 
> Pete Resnick - This started in 2003/2004 as a problem of family.  We
> had a falling out with the part of the org that did admin.  We don’t
> want that to happen again.  No one thinks of the IETF in the way that
> Kathy described.  We need to restructure this so that we are clearly a
> family but so that we don’t have any part subservient is important.  I
> have no problem with professional staff doing admin, as long as we
> have people who are able to oversee this.
> 
> Olaf - Everyone at the mic was around in 2005.  Where are the new people?
> 
> Glenn Dean - As a global host separating the names on the cheques
> would definitely make this easier.  There is a shift in the industry
> that is leading to declining attendance.  The pool of volunteers is
> shrinking.  We can no longer make up the gap.  The number of people
> here is dwindling.  We need to execute the administrative side so that
> onboarding is much easier so that we attract and keep new people.
> 
> Joe Hildebrand - I don’t count as new any more.  We have a lack of
> bench strength for leadership positions.  We need to accept new work
> to do that.  We need to own our part in how we treat people who come
> to use with new work.
> 
> Alissa Cooper - I wasn’t here in 2005.  But I appreciate the
> perspectives of those people who were.  Some other principles
> regarding the target.  Most people who participate in the IETF just
> want this to work, they don’t care how it is done.  And that is fine.
> We need to ensure we get as much input as we can, but can’t expect
> those people to provide much help.  We need to ensure that what we
> produce is governed by the community.  We need to ensure that we can
> continue to raise money and attract new participants to the IETF.
> These are all areas in which we can improve upon.
> 
> Richard Barnes - Also post-2005.  I find this baffling, but the family
> metaphor works.  Lots of arrangements are informal in a family.  I
> write a contract when I loan money to my family.  Making good fences
> makes for good neighbours.  We need to know where those fences - the
> needs - are.  That is the first step here.  I don’t have a good answer
> to this.
> 
> Alia Atlas - I was here in 2005, but wasn’t involved in IASA.  We have
> lots of ways to grow technical management (chairs, ADs).  We do
> apprenticeship and mentoring there.  We have nothing for these
> administrative tasks.  A lot of our community includes senior
> engineers with management experience.  If we don’t nurture and mentor,
> we won’t get people.  I also share the need for outreach and growth.
> We’re losing institutional knowledge as people retire.
> 
> Ray Pelletier - I am the IAD.  HELP!  We need to look at the IETF
> trust.  I can’t watch everything, which is why I suggested we split
> IAOC chair from the trust chair.  The IAOC always has trouble
> selecting a chair with so many ex-officio members that we have very
> few valid candidates.  Mission critical support is what we do, like
> Meetecho and tools development.  I think we have done a pretty good
> job.  Sometimes we step on toes, but that is why we have oversight
> from the community.  Every time I ask the IETF: what do you need?  I’m
> not getting an answer.  …  IETF is an activity of ISOC.  I had a
> similar arrangement, where the activity had a divorce from its parent.
> That was successful, they got more attendance, more money and were
> more successful.  …  I don’t want to die on the job, I don’t want to
> die from the job.  So help.
> 
> Dave - Asks for hands >10y: lots.  3y were mostly ISOC staff, and Joe
> Hall.  We need to avoid delegating our culture so that we maintain our
> culture.  Sometimes we don’t delegate where we should, we’re not
> always good at that.
> 
> Eric - I’m hearing a lot of the same things from a lot of people.  I’m
> looking to close out .
> 
> Gonzalo Camarillo - The target should be separation of concerns.
> ISOC/IETF relationship is confusing.  The ISOC board is working on
> this.  We have trouble explaining this to the non-IETF members on the
> ISOC board.  ISOC is looking at reorganizing to improve how they can
> better support the IETF.  The split is hard to explain.  My budget at
> Ericsson goes to ISOC, but ideally some other division would send
> money to ISOC and my budget would go to the IETF.  Let’s get to next
> steps
> 
> Randy Bush - Newcomer badge.  As the Internet becomes successful it
> becomes vendor backed.  It all comes down to economics.  Sending
> someone to attend on a finance committee is hard to justify.  We
> pretend that this ISOC/IETF relationship is a partnership, but without
> the IETF, ISOC doesn’t last 3 years.  We need to take more
> responsibility at the IETF for the things that ISOC is doing.  We
> don’t even know if these things happen until Olaf tells us.
> 
> Alissa - Thanks for being frank everyone and helping.  I heard a lot
> of the same things over and over.  People seem to be roughly aligned
> around the framing questions.  It sounds like there is openness to
> changes.  ¾ of global hosts mentioned that.  We should continue to
> talk about Jonne’s question about targets, on the list.  We can at the
> same time think about the shape a solution might take.  I think we
> should continue to run this in a workshop style and keep momentum up
> on the list.  In terms of driving, this is on me, but I will be
> reaching out to people to ask for help.