Re: IETF Chair tasks

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

--On Monday, 19 June, 2006 10:49 +0200 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'd be interested to know if anyone has comments on
> draft-carpenter-ietf-chair-tasks-00.txt:
> 
>     This document describes tasks performed by the IETF Chair,
> the IESG
>     Chair, and the Area Director of the General Area of the
> IETF.  Its
>     purpose is to inform the community of what these tasks
> are, and to
>     allow the community to consider whether combining all
> these roles in
>     one person is optimal.
> 
> In particular, with the new NomCom cycle starting soon,
> does anyone believe we should discuss the last point?

Brian,

I don't know if this is just my idiosyncrasies or if others
might agree, but let me try to explain why I haven't responded
to this note and won't do so before Montreal.

I have discovered, reluctantly, that there are only a finite
number of hours in a given week, that I can't dedicate all of
them to the IETF (and that it wouldn't make any difference if I
could), and that, too keep my sanity and the sense that IETF is
worth any energy at all, I need to maintain some balance between
technical work and poking at administrative issues.  

I note that a Last Call on a document that I prepared has just
concluded, with a good deal of discussion (mostly, IMO, not
relevant, but I had to read it).  I note that a decision was
made to Last Call a document about normative RFC formats that
have generated a firestorm of discussion -- discussion that I
consider important because I believe we should be working on
solutions to some underlying problems even while I believe that
this particular proposal is not adequately-defined or
appropriate at this time.  I note that you have taken the fairly
unusual step for an AD (whether officially in that role or not)
of issuing a document that tries to reset the agenda of an
existing IETF WG in your area (
draft-carpenter-newtrk-questions-00).  I don't see any problem
with that, but it has to go fairly high on the priorities of
those of us who have tried to get work done within the WG.  I
note that there are four documents on the table that impact the
RFC Editor/ document publication process on the table, that the
boundaries between them are not completely clear (even if that
were possible), that the schedules are tight, and that the IETF
and community can probably live longer without an
optimally-structured IETF Chair than it can without an effective
publication process.   There are a variety of other process or
organizational change documents, plus at least one technical
document with profound process implications, out there (and in
or near Last Call), many of them overlapping in subtle ways, and
with no advice from you (individually), you (as General Area
AD), you (as IETF Chair), or the IESG generally, about
priorities, etc.

As far as this one is concerned, I have read it a couple of
times.  Parts of your model of the roles and how they might
plausibly be divided are inconsistent with my perceptions.   My
sense is that some of the issues could be addressed in radically
different ways, ones that might actually work better and, along
some dimensions, require fewer changes.   

That doesn't mean you are wrong.  It means that the topics need,
IMO, further discussion and presentation and exploration of
alternatives.  It means that I can't usefully comment on the
subject matter without describing the problems and alternatives
I see and why they are important to be considered. Partially
because of IESG (and IESG member) decisions as to what to Last
Call and when, and the degree to which the General Area AD has
(or has not) been coordinating and steering these collections of
process efforts, this note has ended up in the midst of a rather
large swamp.  And I'm out of bandwidth.

If the IETF Chair position were up for review by this coming
Nomcom, I think I'd take your notes as part of a suggestion to
the Nomcom that they solicit from potential candidates, not an
ever-longer questionnaire, but an essay that specifically
addresses these issues, possibly with the intention of compiling
the results and getting them to the community and IESG as part
of the decision process.  I could elaborate on that idea if
anyone cared, but I presume we have a year before it is in the
critical path.

Perhaps I should suggest what I would suggest if a participant
in the community who was not IETF Chair or on the IESG floated a
document like this on an individual basis:  Announce a beer BOF
schedule for Montreal.  Offer, if necessary, to buy the first
round or a beer for anyone who makes a constructive suggestion.
And then see if, with appropriate lubrication, you get some good
input or if anyone cares about the subject matter more than the
beer itself.

     john




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