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

["Salz, Rich" <[e-mail]>]

    
    There is a mailing list to discuss [1] about NomCom.

Is that a public list, or is it for the nomcom members?  I don’t recall seeing it mentioned in any of the email about a public list, but maybe I missed it.  I was thinking of something more like the “99attendees” 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?
    
    Is being selected as Area Director about winning?  The persons whom 
    you are running against are the persons with whom you will have to 
    work with over the next few years.  They may have expertise which 
    complement yours.

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

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.
  
    What is the probability of having diversity from a pool of 
    attendees?  Although the selection of the pool is random, that does 
    not encourage diversity.  I suggest going over the results from 
    several years ago and to see what prompted a change over the last few years.

I don’t quite understand – going over which results, the Nomcom selections?  If 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.

    The IESG already has a liaison on NomCom.  What good would it do for 
    the IETF Chair to appoint one or more persons to NomCom?
    
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.

    I'll comment about some of your responses to the questions.  Will 
    there be a conflict of interest if you are actively involved in 
    OpenSSL?  How will you manage that?
    
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?

    What's your opinion about allow "peeking" into TLS? :-)

I am opposed. But the discussion seems premature to me.
    
    Should a Security Area Director be a "SecDir" reviewer or should 
    he/she be there to provide guidance?

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. :)

    
    Regards,
    S. Moonesamy

Thank you very much for taking the time to write!  Happy to continue this thread.