Re: [Rfced-future] RFC Editor liaison to the IAB? [was: Re: Comment on draft-iab-rfcefdp-rfced-model-12]

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Brian,

There are two ways to look at this.  One is, as you suggest,
that I'm proposing an unrelated addition to the IAB Charter.
The other is that, rather than unequivocally removing the
liaison from the RFC Editor Function, the IAB wants to leave the
door open to a new version of that relationship should it be
needed in the future.  If one narrowly adopted the latter
version, rather than the slightly broader one I have suggested,
the text would take a bit more effort to write but I would know
how to write it and assume you and Peter would too.

What I don't know is whether, while we quibble about scope (see
below), either the active participants in this Program or the
broader community have any serious objections to the IAB and the
RFC Editor Function (presumably involving action by the RSWG and
RSAB and, if the plan was to involved them, agreement by the RPC
and LLC) restoring a liaison relationship by agreement among
those bodies or would require that the Model document and the
IAB Charter be revised.

Independent of the above, I see nothing in either RFC 2850 or
the foundational POISED documents that prevent the IAB from
considering changes to its charter at any time and proposing
them to the community.  If those changes appeared to have rough
community consensus, I cannot imagine the IESG saying "no you
can't do that because we will not approve of BCP publication"
but, if they did --and noting that none of those documents make
the IAB subsidiary to the IESG-- I assume we would have an
interesting constitutional crisis.  Perhaps less drastically, I
note that the rfced-future activity (including its scope) are
formally an IAB Program (which is why the Model document is
draft-iab-rfcfdp... and not draft-iesg-... or something else and
the community call for comment was issued by Mirja for the IAB).
In principle, nothing prevents the IAB from adjusting the
Program's scope if they concluded that such an adjustment was in
the community's best interest.  I'd hope they would be careful
about such an action at this late stage and, at least
informally, query the community first but it appears to me that
they could, procedurally, do that without any consultation at
all (following precedents established by adjustments to the
scope of other Programs).

Presumably, if they asked you and Peter to incorporate the more
flexible text in your documents and you refused, we would have
an interesting discussion about whether they would have the
authority to rearrange editor responsibilities for an IAB
Program, but I assume it would not come to that.

So, I'd like to hear from the IAB about whether they would
prefer a more restrictive or less restrictive change to their
charter.  And, if they prefer the less restriction option, can
we focus on doing The Right Thing rather than discussions of
scope?

And, of course, if the IAB concludes that the greater
flexibility I propose is not worth the trouble of asking
/directing you to change a sentence (or, of course, that it is
just a bad idea), I'll happily drop the idea.  I am just trying
to avoid having that idea go away without consideration because
of assertions about scope.

  best,
    john




--On Monday, March 14, 2022 08:28 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> John,
> 
> But you're proposing an addition to the IAB charter that is not
> concerned with the RFC Editor model. Regardless of whether this
> is a good idea, surely it is out of rfced-future's scope to
> decide that? So I think Eliot is correct *as far as his remit
> goes*.
> 
> Lars, instructions please.