Re: A sad farewell

Behcet Sarikaya <sarikaya2012@gmail.com> Wed, 04 November 2020 15:24 UTC

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References: <71444008-c716-d83f-a2e2-6e4c7e3fd58a@levkowetz.com> <5360E06F-5639-43D6-8A7E-FA141989A884@gmail.com> <20201103200745.GA12654@faui48f.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
In-Reply-To: <20201103200745.GA12654@faui48f.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Reply-To: sarikaya@ieee.org
From: Behcet Sarikaya <sarikaya2012@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2020 09:24:16 -0600
Message-ID: <CAC8QAceZTWFzs7KYfUP963aC0bt1QBLkSOtMHmSLcqk5B6nuoQ@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: A sad farewell
To: Toerless Eckert <tte@cs.fau.de>
Cc: Henrik Levkowetz <henrik@levkowetz.com>, IETF Discussion <ietf@ietf.org>
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On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 2:10 PM Toerless Eckert <tte@cs.fau.de> wrote:

> I find the responses on this thread quite frustrating.
>
> They are exactly like what i have come to experience when people
> have to leave big companies because of horribly bad management and
> nobody sees a way to improve management. I would have hoped
> that IETF culture and community influence was better and that
> something like this should not have happened or could even be
> reversed by community outcry and forcing change in leadership
> behavior.
>
> I am sorry to hear the insight about LLC operations, because to me
> the contributor facing view i had was very positive. But either i am
> not on the right mailing lists, or these internal conflicts are
> not exposed at all for the community to be able to influence them.
>
> In any case, i fear that progress of tooling, especially in these
> critical times of migration to XMLv3 starting to expose limitations
> and IMHO a need for ongoing "free-of-process" improvement of tooling.
>
> To me, IETF is best when it is driven by engagement of contributors,
> and (rough) community consensus, and not by leadership decisions.
> Unfortunately, i think we are shifting more and more to this leadership
> preference based constrainment of innitiatives, innovation and activities,
> spending more time on prohibiting activities than encouraging them.
> This is IMHO, what is going to kill IETF if it continues.
>
> To me, the tooling team was predominantly visible through the
> extreme responsible hands-on work of Henrik, and i just considered
> him to be the lead contributor to the "tools-track", so the fact
> that he was because of reasons of contract and management decisions
> kept out of the strategy is exactly the problem of self-righteous
> managemenet centric companies. I guess we never had better oversight
> of management tradition, because we came from a long time where we
> may have just been very lucky in our choices of leadership. I don't know.
>
>

+1 on all points. Congrats to Toerless for being outspoken.

Behcet

> *sigh*
>
> Cheers
>     toerless
>
> On Tue, Nov 03, 2020 at 02:19:52PM -0500, Suresh Krishnan wrote:
> > I am very sorry to hear that Henrik. Thanks for everything you have done
> for us over the years. The tools work you did made my IETF work as an
> author, chair, reviewer and AD much more pleasant and efficient. We will
> greatly miss you.
> >
> > Regards
> > Suresh
> >
> > > On Nov 3, 2020, at 9:42 AM, Henrik Levkowetz <henrik@levkowetz.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Dear friends and acquaintances,
> > >
> > > After 20 years of writing tools for the IETF, I will let my contract
> for
> > > tools maintenance lapse at the end of the year, and move on to other
> things.
> > > The reason is the attitude of the current IETF Chair and LLC Board
> towards
> > > contractors in particular and IETF participants in general.  Care for
> the
> > > community doesn't seem to matter to them.
> > >
> > > The current Chair and LLC Board seems to see contractors, including the
> > > secretariat and myself, not as members of the community, but simply
> someone
> > > who should do what they are told by the authority in charge.  This in
> total
> > > contrast with the approach of Russ Housley as IETF Chair; he explicitly
> > > tried to make the secretariat and other contractors an integral part
> of the
> > > community, inviting them in, rather than pushing them out.
> > >
> > > Remembering how supportive the previous full Exec Dir, Ray Pelletier
> had
> > > been with respect to the tools work, I was hoping that things would
> change
> > > at the end of last year with Jay Daley; unfortunately it hasn't;
> rather the
> > > opposite, and it has simply become too painful to carry on.
> > >
> > > Things got bad at the end of last year, when the LLC Board went back
> on their
> > > word after accepting my bid on the RFP in full without reservations;
> they
> > > simply changed the contract offered without one word of conversation
> about
> > > the changes.  My bid would have been substantially different for an
> RFP with
> > > the conditions in that contract.  That was tough, but the final straw
> came at
> > > the beginning of 2020, when a Tools Architecture and Strategy Team was
> > > established to look at the tools future, and I was excluded from it.
> Being
> > > considered a replaceable cog and not a part of the community is not a
> fun
> > > environment in which to work, and I've been depressed for most of the
> year
> > > following that.
> > >
> > > The consequence is, as indicated above, that I  will not sign on to any
> > > contract renewal or bid on any new RFP when the current term runs out
> for
> > > the tools maintenance contract at the end of the year.
> > >
> > > Many and big thanks are due to all the IETF chairs who have supported
> and
> > > encouraged my tools work: Harald Alvestrand, Brian Carpenter, Russ
> Housley,
> > > and Jari Arkko.  Huge appreciation and gratitude also goes to Robert
> Sparks
> > > and Russ Housley for the privilege of working with them in the Tools
> Team
> > > and the TMC (Tools Management Committee).  And finally, thanks to all
> the
> > > members of the community who over the years have made it a joy to do
> tools
> > > work, by expressing their appreciation of the tools.
> > >
> > > ----------
> > >
> > > The longer story, for background, to explain how I came to feel so
> strongly
> > > about being excluded from tools architecture work and having the LLC
> Board
> > > go back on their word without even thinking it was worth talking to me
> about
> > > it:
> > >
> > > I wrote my first draft of a draft in 1999; my first meeting was IETF
> 49.
> > >
> > > In 2001, Sami Vaarala and I both presented drafts outlining NAT
> traversal
> > > for Mobile IP, and based on the way we worked to merge these and build
> > > consensus, I became co-chair of MIP4, a position I held till the group
> was
> > > closed in 2015 (although there was essentially no activity during the
> last
> > > 5 years).
> > >
> > > I early thought it absolutely silly that in the internet age, IETF
> documents
> > > were not available as HTML documents with internal and external
> links.  That
> > > led to rfcmarkup (2002), which was deployed to provide htmlized
> versions of
> > > RFCs, and later drafts, first on my own domain, and later on
> tools.ietf.org.
> > >
> > > As I was writing drafts, I was annoyed with having to manually check
> the format
> > > requirements (line length, boilerplate, and whatnot), and adapted an
> awk
> > > snipped as a 10-line script to check line length for me (2003).  That
> grew,
> > > and became 'idnits'.
> > >
> > > Having to read new revisions of drafts, to keep up with other Mobile IP
> > > contributions, I found it annoying not to know where the changes in
> the new
> > > rev were, and how much was changed.  This led to 'rfcdiff' (2003).
> > >
> > > As WG co-chairs, we had to put together a summary of the status of the
> various
> > > documents before each meeting -- that status report was the main way
> to let
> > > participants know about draft progress, since there was no datatracker
> in
> > > 2000, and no WG support in the IESG tracker tool when it appeared.
> Doing the
> > > summary each meeting was very much drudge work, and becoming tired of
> repeating
> > > the exercise each meeting, I created a document status page for MIP4,
> updated
> > > automatically from various text files available from the draft
> repository and
> > > the IESG tracker (around 2004).  Other chairs saw this, and asked me
> to do the
> > > same for them, and it grew from there, and was eventually incorporated
> into the
> > > official datatracker as WG pages.
> > >
> > > Around late 2006/early 2007, serious SQL injection vulnerabilities were
> > > discovered in the datatracker as it was then.  After a lot of
> feet-dragging
> > > by the vendor in addressing the vulnerabilities, Bill Fenner and I
> started
> > > a skunk-works project to completely rewrite the publicly accessible
> datatracker
> > > from old-style Perl to Python and Django.  For 2 months we worked up
> to 10
> > > hours per day, and disclosed the effort only when we had enough in
> place to
> > > show that the effort was viable.  The powers that were applauded the
> effort,
> > > and we carried through, and released the rewrite in June 2007.
> > >
> > > I continued to do tools work during 40%-50% of my time up till 2016,
> at no
> > > cost to the IETF -- all work and tools were donated by myself or my
> employer
> > > over the years.  In 2016 I was about to switch employers, and the IETF
> > > Chair and several previous chairs saw the opportunity to get me to
> work full
> > > time on IETF tools, which I happily did until the current chair
> started to
> > > seriously treat me not as a member of the community but as a
> contractor that
> > > needed to be told just what to do in early 2018.  After that, things
> went
> > > downhill.
> > >
> > > As mentioned earlier, the final straw came early this year, when
> Alissa and
> > > Jay decided to set up a Tools Architecture and Strategy Team, and
> excluded
> > > me from that work.  That was to me such a clear and unequivocal
> statement
> > > of me not being considered part of the community that it drove me into
> a
> > > depression, from which I could only partially recover by distancing
> myself
> > > from the tools effort more and more.  The depression has gone in waves
> in
> > > the following months, often triggered by additional actions and
> statements
> > > showing the same attitude.
> > >
> > > I don't know which attitude the next Chair will have, but even if it's
> more
> > > in line with earlier chairs, the LLC Board and Jay, who have been part
> of
> > > making this year a miserable one for me, will still be there, not much
> changed.
> > >
> > > So it's not with joy I move on and look for other things to occupy me;
> it's
> > > with sadness in abandoning an area in which I've invested a lot of
> myself
> > > over the last 20 years.
> > >
> > > My best wishes to you all going forward.
> > >
> > >
> > >     Henrik
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
> --
> ---
> tte@cs.fau.de
>
>