--On Tuesday, 05 October, 2004 13:59 +0200 Harald Tveit
Alvestrand <harald(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no> wrote:
John,
I would like to question some of your assumptions below.
--On 3. oktober 2004 14:46 -0400 John C Klensin
<john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> wrote:
Since the discussion about scenarios for structuring the
administrative arrangements seem to be settling down, it is
probably time to try raising some questions that might really
impact the problems that get solved.
The issues raised below interact directly with the problems of
getting better-quality standards produced more quickly.
Unlike some recent discussions, they address those problems
directly, rather than hoping that sufficient administrative
reorganization will help by raising the tide.
I think that we cannot address the questions you raise below
without the administrative reorganization - simply because
under the current regime, we have running code that this does
not get any better.
Sorry. You misunderstood me. I believe that the administration
reorg is a _necessary_ condition to being able to seriously
consider some of these other things. It is not a sufficient
condition. Also, whether the current admin reorg plan is the
minimum one needed to do the job is a separate question, but may
not be relevant at this point.
I believe that most of the rest of our apparent disagreement
stems from this misunderstanding.
...
It is a tradeoff, and it involves decisions that the current
IESG should not be expected to make, if only because most of
them have figured out how to work in the current environment
and presumably like it (at least to the extent needed to
continue).
We have considered such a model; in fact the General Area
Review Team (gen-ART) has proved to me that it is possible to
get a great deal done on a volunteer basis - and even more if
you get someone to act as "secretary" for it, such as Avri
Doria is now doing (Thank you, team!)
(see http://www.alvestrand.no/ietf/gen/review-guidelines.html
for details)
We could quibble about this, and, in particular, about whether
it is/would be adequate for _standards_ processing as distinct
from the things that fall within the General Area. If it were
both adequate and helpful (at least without fine tuning), the
fact that it is being done in this way only in the General Area
would suggest that the other ADs like the workload, are
incompetent, etc. I don't believe that, so I have to believe
that the model you suggest won't generalize without tuning, and
that brings me back to me assertion above.
Such a model would obviously be more stable if we could have
parts of it moved into a paid-for secretariat.
But - in the current model, we have been told by the CNRI
President that the IESG is being unreasonable already in the
demands made of the secretariat, that no new functions can be
added without financing for them, and that the only means
available for getting more resources into the current
secretariat are raising the meeting fees, getting direct
sponsors for CNRI's IETF activities, holding exhibitions at
the IETF and US government funding. Allowing the sponsors who
currently sponsor the IETF through ISOC to pay for it was not
an option.
Yes. See above.
...
Again, we have to fix the underlying problems before we can
pop back up to this level. But once we get there, I don't
think the current IESG is the biggest obstacle to doing so.
However, moving in that direction is incompatible with notions
of "it is a generic function and we can contract it out to
anyone who provides generic support functions to standards
bodies and consortia". It wouldn't have to be done within the
IETF Administrative operation itself, but it would certainly
need to be very closely coordinated (much more closely and
with much more responsiveness than we usually think of with
"contractor") and it would have to be staffed by people who
had, at least, a good understanding of the subject matter and
relationships in IETF's work.
I do not see that this follows. All of the items described
above - checking that people are doing what they promised,
following up when they do not, checking for adherence to
formal criteria, sending back reasonably cogent notes when the
checks fail, and following up - are fairly standard for any
type of document-producing organization - whether it be a
consortium, a standards organization or even a technical
publishing house.
We should have this conversation at another time. But please
reread my comment above about the incompetence this implies
vis-a-vis you fellow ADs.
chance that we want any version of this
"standards secretariat" function, we had best make certain
that the administrative structure can accommodate it, and
that it can do so with little disruption to its basic design
parameters.
A "contractor" would obviously have to work closely with the
people running the process to get this done "right". But I
don't see a particular reason to believe that an organization
doing this under contract would be less able to make it work
than a set of people hired by an organization more closely
linked to the IETF to do the job.
But I don't see the models so far proposed blocking either
possibility.
I do, partially because... well, when I have more time to write.
john
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