[procon] Re: I-D Action: draft-eggert-procon-chair-delegate-02.txt

["Mirja Kuehlewind (IETF)" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Joel, hi all,

I agree about the IAB part and have raised this at the mic at some point but probably should have opened an issue as well. In the IAB charter RFC2850, the IETF Chair is called out as a member of the IAB and this is not just a role or responsibility that can be delegated. Similar as any IAB member cannot delegate its membership to someone else; especially any voting rights cannot be delegated. However, I also don’t think there is a need for delegation here. There is also the liaison from the IESG to the IAB; so there is also a second link between the groups. And similar as IAB members are potentially less active for some periods of time, it is also not a real problem if the IETF Chair would not be able to actively participate in IAB activities for a while; again the membership, however, remains, no matter if someone is actively contributing or not.

Mirja



> On 30. Jun 2026, at 16:22, Joel Halpern <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> While I philosophically agree, I have two concerns.
> 
> One concern is probably unfixable, and we just live with it.  In principle, the person appointed by the nomcom could delegate all of their day-to-day responsibility to other ADs.  Without having told the nomcom that they intended to do that.  I consider that undesirable.  The fixable aspect of this is probably just to note that the nomcom can ask IETF chair candidates what parts of the job they intend to delegate so the nomcom knows which parts of the job they are choosing a person to do, and which parts of the job they are choosing a person to choose a person for.  (Those are different skills.)
> 
> The other piece is that I am concerned about the delegation of the IAB participation.  The delegation of the LLC participation is called out in the LLC documents.   I don't think it is up to the IESG without explicit confirmation from the IAB to change the IAB participation.  I think that delegation someone needs to be signed off on by the IAB.    From where I sit, that delegation could use some better explanation of what properties the IETF Chair should look for in a person when they delegate that role.  My own read is that the IETF Chair inclusion is not merely to ensure close communication (the laiison in each direction already can do that) but to provide a particularly broad view of IETF operations and activities that may otherwise be lacking.  However, that is a guess since I don't think it is spelled out in the existing documents and is not not spelled out here.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Joel
> 
> On 6/29/2026 11:55 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> I support clarifying the IETF Chair's power to delegate. Personally I'd
>> enable it by a much more general provision. Something like:
>> 
>> The Chair may delegate any specific part of their role to another AD,
>> unless specifically disallowed by a BCP. Delegations must be for a
>> specific period of time and must be announced. However, ultimate
>> responsibility remains with the Chair.
>> 
>> That said, I agree with the draft, because it really amounts to exactly
>> that. It just seems that there's a lot of detail that most readers will
>> not care about. Maybe the main text could be rather short, with the details
>> in an Appendix?
>> 
>> Regards/Ngā mihi
>>    Brian Carpenter
>> 
>> On 29-Jun-26 20:52, [e-mail] wrote:
>>> Internet-Draft draft-eggert-procon-chair-delegate-02.txt is now available.
>>> 
>>>     Title:   The IETF Chair May Delegate
>>>     Author:  Lars Eggert
>>>     Name:    draft-eggert-procon-chair-delegate-02.txt
>>>     Pages:   11
>>>     Dates:   2026-06-29
>>> 
>>> Abstract:
>>> 
>>>     This document affirms that the IETF Chair may delegate some of their
>>>     responsibilities to other Area Directors, and updates several
>>>     existing RFCs to enable that.
>>> 
>>> The IETF datatracker status page for this Internet-Draft is:
>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-eggert-procon-chair-delegate/
>>> 
>>> There is also an HTML version available at:
>>> https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-eggert-procon-chair-delegate-02.html 
>>> 
>>> A diff from the previous version is available at:
>>> https://author-tools.ietf.org/iddiff?url2=draft-eggert-procon-chair-delegate-02 
>>> 
>>> Internet-Drafts are also available by rsync at:
>>> rsync.ietf.org::internet-drafts
>>> 
>>> 
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