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

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

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.  I think this is a reasonable thing to do 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.

> 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.

> 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.

> 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?

> 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.

> 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.

> 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? 

> 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.

> 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.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]