Re: [Iasa20] 6635bis

["Adrian Farrel" <[e-mail]>]

Well, if it has to be discussed some time and somewhere, it might as well be here and now. Although I hope it will be noted that the people following this list might not have been expecting this discussion, and the people who might have comments on this issue might not be following this list.

 

I think it is perfectly fine that Sean raised the question because thoughtfully establishing the operational parameters of the LLC is a good thing.

 

In this case, however, my views follow the ones that Stephen expressed, and I think it would be a poor idea to give the LLC scope to fill the RSE role through staff employment.

 

The arguments against seem to many, but the biggest concern I have is that it takes away from the IAB the flexibility (and possibly the responsibility) for appointing and replacing the RSE. Yes, it is lumpy at the moment that one body appoints and another body contracts, but I think we have experience running that model.

 

Like Stephen, I don’t see a pressing reason to change. Maybe if/when such a reason becomes available, we can make a change: it hardly seems likely that it will be an urgent reason. Maybe I missed the reasoning why we need to make this change.

 

Best,

Adrian

 

From: iasa20 <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Richard Barnes
Sent: 30 April 2019 21:52
To: Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>
Cc: IASA 2 WG <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [Iasa20] 6635bis

 

It seems like you're trying to use a process point to shut down discussion here, Brian, and one that's incorrect at that..  As Alissa has already said and Ted confirmed, "the plan for this doc and the other IAB stream bis documents was to discuss them here prior to the IAB running its usual call for community comment".

 

Nobody thinks this working group is taking any action here.  This whole discussion is feedback to the IAB, and the IAB has asked for it in advance of their usual comment period.

 

--Richard

 

On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 4:38 PM Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> > wrote:

I agree with Joel, but once again I am strongly against a draft from
this WG making any of these changes, which are clearly outside the WG's
charter.  When we pass the draft on to the IAB, it would be perfectly
appropriate to raise these points during the IAB's period of public
comment, which of course concerns the entire community interested in
RFCs, not just the IETF.

Regards
   Brian

On 01-May-19 06:17, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> On the SOW phrasing, I can live with removing it, although I do not see 
> the value.
> 
> On the complex reporting, that was the deliberate community compromise.. 
> The goals was to avoid having the RSE be the line manager.  People 
> management is a VEyr different skill set that what we were (and I 
> believe still are) looking for in an RSE.  If you suspect there is a 
> problem with the structure, one could ask the RSE and / or the RPC if 
> they have a problem with it.
> 
> On making the LLC more able to make the RPC employees, that is a major 
> shift in structure.  I would want to see an explicit reason for enabling 
> such a change, not just "to give us more flexibility".   Flexibility in 
> structuring is good if it solves / avoids a problem.  In this case, what 
> does that solve / avoid?  If we develop a problem, that would seem the 
> time to ask the community for permission to make such a change.
> 
> Yours,
> Joel
> 
> On 4/30/19 12:40 PM, Sean Turner wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 29, 2019, at 15:03, Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> > wrote:
>>>
>>> Maybe the correct answer is for us all to stop arguing for any position until there is a proposed change that can be discussed?
>>
>> Hi! Again sorry for going into radio silence right after starting this thread.
>>
>> Since Joel asked, I have included review comments below. These deal directly with the question about more flexibility for the RSE and RPC to be either contractors or employees, and the text suggestions assume that the desired result is flexibility for the LLC to choose the type of employment relationship. I have some other comments/questions based on reviewing the doc but I will hold those for now so we can focus on this particular issue..
>>
>> I realize people wanted to just s/IAOC/LLC/ here as in the other documents (and that the editors dutifully followed this direction), but this draft is prescriptive about what the LLC can do in a way that the other documents are not. As a result, changing the label seems to have other implications that it is worth the community considering. If IAOC == LLC then we would not have gone to the trouble to create the LLC.
>>
>> Also, in case it was not clear, none of this relates to performance of current contractors in current roles, but rather establishing the LLC's ability to operate successfully in the future.
>>
>>
>> = Section 2 =
>>
>> The use of the term "SOW" could be read to imply contractor status. Suggestion:
>>
>> OLD
>>    These responsibilities are defined below, although the specific work
>>    items under them are a matter for the actual employment contract and
>>    its Statement of Work (SOW).
>>
>> NEW
>>    These responsibilities are defined below.
>>
>> = Section 2.1.1 =
>>
>> "The RSE is responsible for the performance of the RFC Production Center and Publisher."
>>
>> It is not clear what this is meant to imply from a management perspective. Also relevant here is Figure 2 and this text from 2.2: "All these activities will be done under the general direction, but not day-to-day management, of the RSE." Under RFC 6635, does this mean that if the performance of the RPC does not meet the standards in the RPC contract, that the RSOC/IAB are to hold the RSE accountable for that? Section 2.1.1 also says the RSE performs annual reviews for the RPC and the Publisher function. But this performance responsibility/accountability relationship is not specified in the RPC contract as far as I can tell. That is, accountability to the RSE for performance of the contract does not appear. Accountability to ISOC (now assigned to the LLC) does appear.
>>
>> If both employees and contractors are allowed for these functions, it seems like there are multiple different management structures that could all be workable here (e.g., RPC employees reporting to an RSE employee who is their manager, or all of them as employees reporting to another manager within the LLC, or two contractors whose contracts are both managed by the same LLC employee). So if there is flexibility allowed in the employment types, it would probably make more sense for this section to just specify who is expected to be accountable to whom for their performance, and leave out the bits about SOWs and vendor selection. But it's hard to suggest a specific edit since the intent of RFC 6635 is not clear, or not clearly reflected in the contracts.
>>
>> = Section 2.2 =
>>
>> Same comment as Section 2, regarding "paid contractor.”
>>
>> OLD
>>    The RFC Production Center function is performed by a paid contractor,
>>    and the contractor's responsibilities include the following:
>>
>> NEW
>>    The RFC Production Center's responsibilities include the following:
>>
>> The last sentence of the section would also need to be deleted or edited based on edits to 4.1.
>>
>> = Section 2.3 =
>>
>> The last sentence of the section would need to be deleted or edited based on edits to 4.1.
>>
>> = Section 4.1 =
>>
>> If employees and contractors are both allowed, it seems like mandating the specific process detailed here would not work, since depending on the circumstances this might be a vendor selection process or an employee hiring process or a mix of both. It seems like specifying who must be involved in whatever process is used is important, since that allows the community to know that the people who are the appointed experts (on RSOC or selected by RSOC) will be involved. But eliding the rest of the details and the language about vendors and SOWs and RFPs would be needed to provide the flexibility.
>>
>> What to suggest here specifically is dependent on the intent of 2.1.1, per my comments above.
>>
>> spt
>> _______________________________________________
>> iasa20 mailing list
>> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> 
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> iasa20 mailing list
> [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> 
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20
> 

_______________________________________________
iasa20 mailing list
[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> 
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20