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One last word on operational reserves

2005-01-19 08:52:43
The ISOC board has been following the development of the Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) Internet Draft and some of the board members have been participating in the discussion. The board feels that this draft is something that the board can readily agree to support and agree that the ISOC will accept the responsibilities of ISOC as described in the document.

That said, there may be some disagreement over the meaning of section 5.6 that should be cleared up before the document is ratified by the IESG and some people may have some unrealistic expectations of generating a running financial surplus (which we will discuss in a separate message since it does not impact the text of the draft)

The second paragraph of Section 5.6 reads (in the -04 version of the draft)
   The IASA expects ISOC to build and provide that operational reserve,
   through whatever mechanisms ISOC deems appropriate: line of credit,
   financial reserves, meeting cancellation insurance, and so forth.  In
   the long term, financial reserves are preferable; it should be a goal
   for ISOC to reach this level of reserves within 3 years after the
   creation of the IASA.

This paragraph could refer to an IETF (IASA)-specific operational reserve or to the overall ISOC operational reserve. The ISOC plans to build up an operational reserve to protect all of the ISOC's activities, including the IETF-related ones. The board thinks that this is the appropriate way to proceed. Rob Austein suggested that maybe this paragraph should be removed (see http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg33748.html). Either removing the paragraph or revising it to make it clear that it is referring to the overall ISOC operational reserve would remove the potential for misunderstanding.
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