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

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

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;-)

- 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. 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. 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.

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.

Cheers,
S.