Dave,
We have a long history of looking at the same data and analysis
and reaching different conclusions and of looking at different
data and analysis and reaching similar conclusions. Since we
have both been critical of aspects of this process, let me agree
with you about part of it but supply some different data about
the rest in the hope we can come closer together.
--On Monday, October 04, 2004 9:10 PM -0700 Dave Crocker
<dhc2(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
...
1. Nothing about the reorganization is going to make IETF
standards be more useful or be produced significantly more
quickly. Hence, reorganization has nothing to do with the
really serious threats to IETF long-term survival.
Arguably not true. The present organizational structure and its
consequences are sufficient to block some changes that really
might improve the efficiency of the process. It is a separate
set of questions as to whether we prefer those changes and the
accompanying risks to slogging through with our current
arrangements (see my note on the "Clerk" function), but it is
clear that the current organizational structure would block any
such changes. See below for more on this.
2. The current sense of crisis has mostly come from a loss of
revenue. Nothing about the reorganization will necessarily
fix that.
Having participated in the "AdminRest" activity and the
investigations that surrounded it, I don't think this is true.
The current sense of crisis derives, IMO, primarily from four
factors:
* the inability to move funds from one source and
category to another (to be specific, there is no way to
move money derived from meeting fees into efforts other
than the CNRI/Foretec-operated secretariat or to move
money from ISOC revenues and contributions into that
secretariat),
* seemingly-unresolveable inability of the IETF
leadership and community to understand where one of
those sources/ pools of money are going (to be specific
about one example, the IETF has been completely
unsuccessful in getting information about where
"overhead" being charged by CNRI/Foretec goes and how
that overhead rate is determined),
* apparent inability of the CNRI/Foretec Secretariat to
work with the IETF leadership to develop new ways of
doing things or even to do the existing, historical,
tasks as well as they were being done a half-dozen years
ago (to be specific about a few examples, it is my
understanding that every recent proposal for change or
improvement from the IESG or IAB has been greeted with
an indication that it is impossible to think about such
things without additional revenues, presumably from
meeting fees. The community has seen other symptoms.
For example, meeting dates and locations are being
nailed down less than six months in advance, not the
18-24 months which the community has repeatedly
requested. We are also seeing an apparent inability to
keep lists like IETF-Announce to extremely limited
access for posting (not exactly rocket science)). There
are far more serious symptoms: lost documents, delayed
protocol action announcements, and many other problems
in document handling and processing, which are
occasionally visible to document editors and WG chairs
but, by the nature of their oversight/management role,
every instance is visible to the IESG and they have to
deal with them every day.
* and, of course, there are some issues about finances
going forward, but the present organizational structure
and relationships have prevented engaging those in any
serious ways.
3. The rest of the sense of crisis is due to interaction
problems between some people in IETF leadership and some
people in the organizations that the IETF uses for services.
Nothing in the reorganization is certain to improve any of
that, especially since we do not have precise statements of
work for them. (There is a rather mystical sense that the
reorganization will fix these issues, but in fact nothing in
the simplistic, superficial way that we are proceeding should
give us any sense that that improvement is likely. Quite the
opposite.)
Here we partially agree. There is some risk, given the current
reorganization process and model, that we will succeed in
recreating the present situation with a secretariat function
that doesn't work well in some ways, including being
unresponsive relative to IESG/IAB expectations. However, many
of the problems with the current relationship stem from very
different assumptions, derived from history, about who has
ultimate decision authority. The IETF view is that ultimate
authority for determining the best interests of the IETF and the
Internet rests exclusively in the IETF leadership, representing
the consensus of IETF participants. The CNRI view seems to be
that this ultimate authority rests with CRNI, because of their
founding role, their experience with relationships external to
the IETF, and their greater experience and longer view of a
variety of matters. Regardless of which point of view one
sympathizes with, the gulf between those points of view is
fairly significant.
4. Most of the reorganization process has been pursued with
partial statements, incomplete plans, and assertions of
urgency. It certainly has not been conducted in a way that
attended to concerns as they were raised. Quite the
opposite.
Indeed. I'd go a bit further in comparing this to our processes
and history of developing specifications. Somewhat over a
decade ago, we discovered that the IAB had gotten out of touch
with the community and, more important, had begun to substitute
their judgment for that of the community and to assert their
right and responsibility to do so. The Kobe incident was part
of a series, not a unique event. The community's response was
to change the way people were appointed to the IAB and IESG and
to remove most authority from the former. The hope was that
this would fix the problem. Well, we are arguably seeing the
same symptoms again (with the body to whom we gave that
authority and, to a somewhat lesser degree, with some members of
the IAB), although more dramatically and clearly with the admin
issues than with standards. That said, the problem
identification effort turned up a number of things that might
suggest the same problems in the standards process side of the
house.
So the view that "delay" will not assist us amounts to a
statement that we should not worry about the considerable
range of serious problems in how we have been pursuing
organization, or with our community ignorance about what we
are doing, but we should charge ahead (blindly) just to get
it over with.
We agree about that too.
In a subsequent note, you wrote...
My point was that the level of naivete and irrationality that
underlie this reorganization process would never be tolerated
in any serious design effort for specifications.
So I was not talking about "rules".
I was talking about being deliberate, constructive risk-averse.
There I think we are making progress, although one could doubt
the efficiency of the mechanisms. Certainly Scenario O
represents a better risk balance than Scenario C, regardless of
how we have gotten there.
best,
john
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