Re: [ietf-nomcom] Experiment in "full transparency"

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi Rich,
At 06:16 AM 17-10-2017, Salz, Rich wrote:
>Is that a public list, or is it for the nomcom 
>members?  I don't recall seeing it

It is an open IETF mailing list.

>  mentioned in any of the email about a public 
> list, but maybe I missed it.  I was thinking of 
> something more like the "99attendee" type of 
> list, or the wg-chairs lists where people who 
> are interested in the *process* or perhaps just 
> this year's crop of nominees could talk about 
> it.  Is that what this list is for?

It is a mailing list to discuss about the drafts 
which are related to the NomCom process.  It is 
not a mailing list to discuss about this year's crop of nominees.

>Did I give that impression?  I didn't mean to; but, of course, I want to be AD

No.

>  otherwise I would not have gone through the 
> process.  I freely acknowledge that the other 
> nominees, and almost everyone in the IETF, has 
> traits and talents that complement mine.  Which 
> is to say, that they are better than me at some 
> things. I am probably better than them at some 
> things. If you think I said otherwise, please 
> point out where so that I can improve.

I don't think that you said otherwise.

>On the other hand, an open and frank statement 
>is better than private triangulation.  If I were 
>to say that I hope you don't re-pick Jari 
>because he has nasty fish-breath, that's not 
>right to say in private ­ if I have a concern 
>like that I should approach the person 
>directly.  The IESG isn't a children's 
>playground and the Nomcom aren't the playground 
>monitors. There is plenty of time for private discussion in the interview.

The "open and frank statements" is about NomCom 
getting feedback about the candidates.  In simple 
terms, you get to say who will be a good fit for your Area.

>I don't quite understand ­ going over which 
>results, the Nomcom selections?  If

Yes.

>  that's what you mean, I would guess that 
> increased sensitivity to the lack of diversity. 
> That's usually the way things work, especially 
> in high tech. It would be interesting to have 
> an academic study of the diversity in IETF 
> attendance and leadership. I am certainly not 
> qualified to do so, but I think it would probably be worth having.

Please see RFC 7704.  I vaguely recall that there 
was also an academic study of issues related to 
the IETF and diversity was mentioned in it.

>I think there should be a voting member.  Nearly 
>half of nomcom is non-voting liaisons and such. 
>That looks strange to me.  As I've said, picking 
>randomly picking members from a fairly 
>homogeneous population gets you representative 
>membership, but not diverse membership.  Until 
>the membership if more diverse, I think we need 
>an outside influence. I am not yet sure of the 
>best way to do that; the chair appointment was one possibility.

My uninformed opinion is that the NomComs of 
today is different from the ones from the 
yesteryears as the latter was a time when 
everybody knew each other.  If there is a need 
for a change, it should come from within instead 
of one which is driven by outside influence.  It 
is up to the IETF to see whether it would like to 
have a membership which represents its participants or its attendees.

>I don't see why it would be any more of a 
>conflict than folks working on Cisco VPN or 
>S/Wan or Firefox or such.  Do you think there is 
>a special concern with OpenSSL?

The point was about what you might do instead of 
what others have done or may do.  I mentioned 
OpenSSL as you are part of its team and that you 
may be able to understand whether there might be 
a conflict of interest with some IETF work and 
explain how you would handle that.

>I am opposed. But the discussion seems premature to me.

I thought that it could be useful to get a clear answer on this issue. :-)

>In retrospect, I think secdir provides input to 
>the AD's and that it was wrong to say I'll 
>continue on secdir. You don't get two bites at 
>the apple (lawyer saying).  Had I gotten this 
>posted before, the open review probably would have caught that bug. :)

Ok. :-)

I assume that your strong points are about 
bringing in an understanding of implementation 
and deployment issues.  How would you do that?

Your suggestion to shrink the time commitment was 
to bring in a third Area Director.  What if that 
was not an option?  How would you tackle that?

Why is it shocking when an Area Director votes" 
no objection" and provides pages of comments?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy