Re: I-D Action: draft-hardie-iaoc-iab-update-00.txt

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

On 2/6/2016 5:16 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 06, 2016 at 11:25:29AM -0500, Michael StJohns wrote:
>> For the options above, I'm actually leaning towards either no IAB appointees
>> or one IAB member appointee.  Basically, its no longer clear why the IAB
>> should be selecting two members of the IAOC.
> I think the "selecting two members" is a bit of a red herring here.
> One of those members is required to be an IAB member; at the moment,
> it's the chair.

Are you saying that the IAB does not select the IAB chair?  The IAB 
selects two members.  You could also logically say that the IAB chair is 
selected as a result of he/she being selected as an IAOC member.

In contrast, the IESG selects only one member.  The IETF chair, also an 
ex-officio member, gets selected by the Nomcom.    The IESG does get to 
confirm the other two IAOC members selected by the Nomcom.

I think the numbers are correct here - the IAB selects two members.

>   I think this is a reasonable thing to do
What is a reasonable thing to do?  Select two members?  Or select one 
IAB member not the chair to serve on the IAOC?

>   because the
> IAB is in many ways the foreign office of the IETF, and that
> inevitably entails interactions that might have administrative
> consequences.  The RFC Editor function and the IANA function are two
> obvious examples, though basically anything that might entail
> expenditures and over which the IAB has oversight falls into this
> category.  I think we shouldn't forget that in this discussion.  I
> won't speak for the other authors, but this is at least why I was only
> focussing on one narrow issue: who from the IAB ought to be on the
> IAOC?  Today it's the chair, and all the proposal is intended to do, I
> think, is to alter that so that it might be the chair and it might be
> someone else, depending on the circumstances.

As I pointed out, under the current rules, if you want another IAB 
member (other than the chair) to serve on the IAOC you need only appoint 
an IAB member with your current second choice.  I would expect that the 
IAOC might prefer that you as chair attend most meetings, but would be 
happy to have an IAB member watching the store for the chair.


>
>> The draft does not discuss the term of the IAB member on the IAOC. What
>> happens if you appoint someone with only 6 months left on their IAB term?
> Given that IAB terms all end at the same time, the "only 6 months"
> case is identical regardless of whether it's the chair or someone
> else.  So I don't understand the concern here.

Ummm... are we talking about the same IAB?  There are 12 members of the 
IAB, 6 of which terms end this coming IETF meeting and 6 the third 
meeting after that.   So say you appoint Mary Barnes to your 
"replacement for the chair" slot effective today?


>
>> Can the IAB replace the person at any time?
> Under the current rules, the answer is yes.  That is, the IAB chair
> can be removed at any time by the IAB, so the IAOC member could be
> too.  We should add that.

We should NOT add that.  This is what I meant about stability.  As of 
right now to the best of my knowledge, you as IAB chair have the least 
stable term of anyone on the IAOC.  If you want to get off and put 
someone else on, then we should probably make sure that the new persons 
term is no less stable.  And while its true that the IAB chair position 
can change at any time, I believe (I'm to tired right now to confirm 
this) the IAB's own documents generally restrict that to a single 
election immediately after the new class takes its position each year.  
So the term does tend to be at least a year. And effectively, there are 
few IAB chairs who have served less than two or three years, so I'm less 
concerned about any given IAB chair swapping off the IAOC in less than a 
year or even two.


>
>> Yup.  Add it to the draft.  I would also say that you can't appoint someone
>> to the IAOC who has less than a year left on the IAB.
> There's no such restriction today (the chair can be any member of the
> IAB).  So why change that?

See above.  Effectively, the chair position tends to be multi-year stable.

>
>> How is "not an IAB stream" document obvious except through these
>> discussions?
> Apologies, then.  I guess I figured that, since this obviously had to
> update BCP 101, it was also obvious it couldn't be IAB stream.
> Speaking for myself, I confess I was surprised this attracted the
> notice it did.  We thought to upload it so that the IAB could look at
> it before drawing community attention to it, so it's possible that not
> all the details were as mature as one might like.  That is, however,
> why we have the ease of publication in the I-D repository.

I'm actually quite surprised that you didn't have a chat with the IAOC 
and bring them in on the discussion before throwing things out as an ID....

>
>> See my comments above.  If you're going to open up the question of "who", I
>> think that the question of "how many" is also relevant.
> I really think these are separate issues, because of the IAB
> responsibilities for some of the stuff the IAOC and IAD have to
> provide.  I'm perfectly prepared to have a separate discussion of
> whether the IAB ought to be appointing someone who need not be an IAB
> member, but I'd like to keep those issues separated.

Why?   If we're going to change the basis on which the IAB is 
represented on the IAOC, we should evaluate ALL the relationships 
between the IAOC and the IAB at once as they probably interact.

>
>> Hmm... apples and oranges.  The section you quoted applies to the
>> non-ex-officio members.
> Yes, and it's the only discussion of such selection criteria at all.
> Yet the very same reasoning doesn't apply in this case?

Not really.  As Scott noted in his most recent email, there's a power of 
position related to the IAB and IESG and ISOC board chair positions that 
pretty much outweighs (or moots is probably a better word) such 
selection criteria.

>
>> I understand that you want to do something that provides you (in your
>> persona as IAB chair) an immediate benefit by reducing your
>> responsibilities.
> I don't think it does really provide an immediate benefit, or even a
> long term one.  I suppose it might reduce a phone call or trip or two,
> but that stuff is now already budgetted for me; and my employer is
> anyway unlikely to fund my participation long enough for this change
> to take effect, so it probably won't help me personally at all.

Fair point.  But I think you have at least another year on the IAB 
you've committed to AIRC?  If we all agreed upon this it could be done 
quickly.



>
>> I'm asking "what's in it for the rest of us?"  What is the benefit
>> to the IETF for making the change?
> I think the benefit is exactly as I've already suggested.  It would
> reduce somewhat the things an IAB chair needs to do, thereby possibly
> increasing the number of candidates and therefore possibly helping IAB
> (and thereby IETF) diversity.  It would also reduce the centrality of
> the one person who happens to be IAB chair in a given year; this I
> regard as much more important, because it gets us away from any hint
> of a "presidents and kings" model.
I kind of doubt the deletion of IAOC duties from the IAB chair's plate 
is going to make that job more attractive due to less work. It might 
make it more attractive due to not being on the IAOC - which is at its 
core a hard and pretty much thankless job.   And taking you/chair off 
the IAOC is not really going to do much to "reduce the centrality" of 
the IAB chair.

But that's really not a benefit "for the rest of us" per se.

Later, Mike



>
> Best regards,
>
> A
>