RE: Options for IETF administrative restructuring

[Margaret Wasserman <[e-mail]>]

Hi Graham,

I'd like to make a couple of comments on your post -- not to argue 
with you (because I think we are in basic agreement), but just to 
clarify my earlier comments.

At 12:31 PM +0100 9/6/04, [e-mail] wrote:
>4.  However, Margaret has written about problems with existing
>arrangements.  While option A or B *might* solve the CNRI/Secretariat
>issues, how would it help the ( apparent ) RFC Editor issues ?

I do not personally believe that there any significant issues with 
the current organizational relationship between the RFC Editor and 
the IETF (as represented by the IAB & ISOC).  We have a well-defined 
relationship, defined in a publicly-available MOU.  The funding model 
of the RFC Editor is well-understood, we have clear visibility into 
what we are funding, the ownership of the IETF's intellectual 
property is clear (currently owned by ISOC), and I personally think 
that we're getting an excellent deal.

What I pointed out was a problem with having two different funding 
pools, and therefore two different corporations (ISOC and 
CNRI/Foretec, in this case) that claim ownership of the real or 
intellectual property that is purchased or developed using money from 
those funding pools.

Perhaps I was vague enough to be unintelligible, so I'll be more 
explicit.  But, please do remember that I am not a lawyer and do not 
fully understand the legal aspects of these things.

One of the things that I would like to see us do is to integrate (to 
some extent, anyway) the I-D Tracker and the RFC Editor Queue 
management tools, so that we can track a document from the time it is 
published as an I-D through RFC publication.  I have every belief 
that the RFC editor would cooperate in this effort, but we can't make 
real progress in this area because we (the IETF leadership and/or the 
IETF community) don't have the source code to the I-D Tracker and we 
haven't been allowed to access any tools that can do database 
reporting (full data dumps, for example) from the I-D Tracker.  The 
explanation I have been given for why we do not have these things is 
that CNRI/Foretec claims ownership of the I-D Tracker (the source 
code, the machines it runs on and the data it contains) because it 
was developed by them.  Since there is no contract in place that 
asserts IETF ownership of anything that is developed using our 
meeting fees, they may even be correct.

If one organization were funding (and therefore owned) the tools on 
both sides, we could not get into a situation where one organization 
was claiming ownership of a vital IETF tool and would not give us 
(the IETF leadership and/or the IETF community) the access necessary 
to leverage that tool across other IETF functions.

>As I
>understand it, the RFC Editor contract is already managed by ISOC.  If
>we have a problem with the way that relationship works now, why would it
>help to put the CNRI/Secretariat relationship on the same footing ?
>Since I don't know what the specific problems are, this needs to be
>addressed by someone with the benefit of IESG / IAB experience.

There are several people with substantially more IESG/IAB experience 
than I have, so I will allow them to comment further (if they like) 
on the RFC Editor relationship.  However, as I said above, I didn't 
mean to imply that there was anything significantly wrong with the 
organizational relationship between the RFC Editor and the IETF, and 
I don't think that there is anything wrong.

>5.  Section 3.1 of Carl's Report ( Page 20 ) states "Evaluation of
>applicants might consist of a search committee appointed by the IETF
>Chair."  Isn't the appointment of committee members what the IETF
>empowers the Nomcom for ?

IMO, this is a good point.

That said, I think that we need to determine the basic structure of 
this function before we determine the mechanism that we should use to 
hire the Administrative Director to run it.  If we go with the 
approach that I have suggested where a community-selected (by which I 
mean NomCom-selected) board would run the administrative functions of 
the IETF, then I think that the Administrative Director should be 
selected by the members of that Board.  Also, if we do decided to 
organize as a portion of ISOC (under either Scenario A or B), it 
might make sense for the President/CEO of ISOC to have some say in 
who is hired to work within her organization in this capacity.

Margaret





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