Re: [Iasa20] 6635bis

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

n Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 8:41 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[e-mail]> wrote:, that is clearly stated as a "paid
contractor", as is the "RFC Publisher contractor".

>
> To me it would make no sense to have *individuals* employed by the LLC who
> are part of either of those teams. So it's all or nothing: the Production
> Center and the Publisher would have to be either 100% in-house employees or
> 100% contracted out. But why we'd want the LLC, which we were promised
> would be lightweight and cheap, to starting hiring software and operations
> staff and buying or renting servers, is a bit beyond me.
>

Hi Brian,

I'd like to dig into a few of the operational concerns you raise here.

First, you say that you think that the RPC and the Publisher should be
either 100% in house or 100% contracted. In my experience, both as someone
on the employer and employed side, it's quite common to have a mix of
employees and consultants. For instance, you might have a staff of people
who do the regular work and then occasionally hire specialists to do some
work that you don't need a FTE for. Another example is when you have a
temporary increase in load so you hire extra contract staff to fill in the
gaps during the heavy period under the assumption that you'll let them go
when the load decreases. It's also not uncommon to have some FTEs who
manage a contract with a company which does most of the work. Can you say
more on why you think this is unworkable?

Second, you contrast the idea of hiring staff to do these jobs with a
"lightewight and cheap" LLC that contracts these functions out. Lightweight
is kind of subjective, but as a practical matter, it's often more expensive
to contract out tasks than it is to have them done by FTEs because you pay
a premium for a short term engagement and/or one which is easier to
terminate. Of course, if you want that flexibility then this is advisable,
but in cases where you have a relatively steady base of work, then it's
often cheaper to have FTEs (and, as above, fill in gaps with contractors).

Or am I misunderstanding you?

-Ekr