Re: Eliot Lear to Serve as RFC Editor Future Development Program Chair

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Hi.

This is very reassuring.  

However, inline below...

--On Tuesday, March 31, 2020 21:55 +0100 Stephen Farrell
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> 
> Hiya,
> 
> Not directed at or to John only, and this is just from
> me and wasn't discussed with rest of the IAB...
> 
> On 31/03/2020 05:58, John C Klensin wrote:
>> if
>> the "future development" effort (when did it change from
>> "evolution"?) starts off with the same level of distrust that
>> characterized some of last year's discussions, clear and
>> useful results would seem rather unlikely no matter how much
>> effort Eliot and others put in.
> 
> That's a pity and I'm sorry that we didn't decide to
> explain how we ended up where we ended up. Not grokking
> that we needed to explain ending up with one chair was
> an error, and one I was part of. Apologies for that.
> 
> It's difficult to say much more though as this was a
> straightforward IAB appointment aka personnel decision,
> so I doubt that we'll be able to satisfy Mike's query
> really, but fwiw:
> 
> - As far as I know there is no IAB skullduggery related
> to the chair selection going on at all. I know that's a
> bare assertion to just trust the IAB, and in a situation
> where that's far from a given, but I did say fwiw;-)

Not speaking for Mike, but it would seem to me that, after the
IAB got a clear recommendation from the community about
co-chairs _and_ put out an announcement that confirmed that
recommendation and stated that it what was going to be done,
that the IAB took on an obligation to come back to the community
if that objective turned out to be impractical or impossible.
Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't see that as a
personnel matter, whether particular personnel issues influenced
it or not.

> - Please bear in mind that there were shifting logistics
> as the IAB was processing the feedback. At one point we
> were mostly focused on ensuring a session could happen in
> Vancouver with a non-IAB person as chair at the front of
> the room. 

Again, you and the community said "two or three", so, if that
focus was on "a non-IAB person as chair...", something had
already changed and there should have been an opportunity to
notify the community (or ask for alternate suggestions, as
appropriate).

> That of course was OBE in the end, but did
> factor into how things played out. (Please also believe
> me that that says nothing about the capabilities of any
> of the folks who volunteered, I'm only saying that there
> was a logistics aspect.)
 
> Again, I'm sorry that it's kind of impossible to say
> more about this, hopefully those of you who've done IETF
> personnel stuff might be able to understand that opening
> the kimono at all is just really hard. 

I have been there and understand.  At the same time, I think it
should have been possible to separate the personnel-specific
matters from the more strategic one of the agreement with the
community about co-chairs.

> And as Mirja has
> said we'll be getting a co-chair for Eliot - hopefully
> one positive outcome of this thread will be that people
> consider again taking on the role.

Ok, but I have two concerns.  One echoes Brian's and may relate
to Eliot's scope question.  I see the critical task for this
effort as being to get our ducks lined up and pointed
sufficiently in the same direction that we can either write a
job and move toward hiring a new, non-temporary, RSE or decide
we don't need one (at least for this conversation, I'm trying to
keep an open mind about that).  When Mirja says "months", that
sounds like a very long time wrt that objective, possibly long
enough to preempt the answer.  And it might also imply that the
course of the effort will be sufficiently well set, under
Eliot's able leadership, that the role of a co-chair in practice
might easily be a supporting one rather than having the pair of
equals that I think the community was anticipating.

> Lastly, (and again more in hope than in the expectation
> that people will just believe in the IAB;-), every
> indication that I've gotten tells me that the IAB
> collectively do want to support, but not control, this
> activity. I do expect individual IAB members will get
> involved (incl. me) but there hasn't been any collective
> IAB attempt to put a thumb on the scales that I've seen.

Again, thanks for the reassurance.

    john