Re: Assuring ISOC commitment to AdminRest

On 12/11/04 at 3:07 PM -0500, John C Klensin wrote:

> I suspect that, were ISOC to start changing their bylaws in this 
> sort of direction and in ways that would actually provide the 
> guarantees you want, they would reasonably insist on reciprocal 
> provisions that would prevent IETF from unwinding the relationship 
> without cause, would permit them to step in if they concluded that 
> IETF was about to self-destruct (or fizzle out) -- see my earlier 
> note on the implications of IETF's going under--and so on.
As far as preventing the IETF from unwinding the relationship: To 
unwind the relationship from the IETF side would take a change in the 
BCP, with IETF-wide consensus. It is exactly that fact, and the fact 
that the current state of affairs only requires a simple majority of 
the ISOC board to unwind, which I think mandates this. Unwinding the 
relationship on the IETF side would be a "big deal".
As far as self-destruction: If such is imminent, I cannot imagine 
that the ISOC board can not get four-fifths of themselves (the amount 
needed to make a by-law change) to agree to rescind the by-law I 
propose.
> Let me suggest an analogy that may help in understanding how far we 
> should go in this direction.  Resignations of IAB and especially 
> IESG members on short notice, especially if they are immediately 
> effective, are bad for the community.[...]But we do not, to my 
> knowledge, require either of the following:
>         * A commitment from the potential candidate that he or
>         she will not leave the job from which support exists for
>         another position in which the IETF work would be less
>         well supported.
>
>         * A corporate commitment, approved by the corporate
>         Board and signed off on by the CEO or Chairperson, that
>         the potential candidate will not be fired or laid off,
>         with or without cause, and that, even if the potential
>         candidate's department is closed or spun off, the
>         candidate will continue to be retained at the company
>         and supported in his or her IETF work.
I don't think the analogy holds in the least. You can bet that we'd 
be asking the Nomcom for those kinds of statements if there were 
serious money involved in such a resignation. And though I am sure 
all sorts of things rest on IESG or IAB work, we're not talking about 
the potential for millions of dollars that we're talking about with 
the ISOC's budgetary support for the IETF administrative functions. 
Asking someone for a relationship as a volunteer worker is quite a 
bit different from asking someone for a relationship as your sole 
fundraiser and administrative home.
And this would not be asking for an irrevocable commitment. It's 
asking that four out of five of the board members agree before the 
commitment is revoked. I don't think that it's that much to ask.
> To be pragmatic about this, were a new Board to consider such lack 
> of good faith, it would almost certainly cost ISOC enough in 
> donations and other support to induce severe harm...
Indeed. And therefore asking for four-fifths of them to be on board 
to change the by-law seems like not such a hardship, eh?
> Conversely, if you assume an ISOC Board that is suddenly taken over 
> by Evil Influences (in spite of history, IETF-appointed Board 
> members, etc., I don't understand your confidence that they would 
> not either change or ignore any IETF-specific bylaw provisions that 
> existed.
Indeed, if they were taken over by evil forces that could convince 
four-fifths of them to change the by-law, one would hope that we 
would see that coming a long time in advance.
Big relationships taken care of by winks, nods and handshakes among 
friends makes me very nervous. I've watched enough friends get into 
business relationships with each other only to end up in very bad 
places, severely complicated by the fact that they said, "Oh, we're 
all friends here; we don't need to put anything down in writing or 
get lawyers involved." And it's made all the worse because friends 
will wiggle around in bad states for long periods of time because 
they are friends.
All that I'm asking for is a serious commitment (at least as serious 
as us putting something down in a BCP) from ISOC. Asking for 
four-fifths of them (and hopefully all of them) to say, "The IETF is 
a special relationship for us" in the by-laws where it will take 
another four-fifths of them to change that position, seems like scant 
little to ask. And frankly I would find serious resistance to it to 
be a cause for concern.
pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

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