Thanks for your response Thomas.
Apologies if I had inadvertently given the impression of mistrust in the
current leadership, I* and WG chairs. I have very good working
relationships with most if not all of the I* folks I interact with.
Sure, there have been differences of opinions, but with communication,
the differences were either resolved or we agreed to disagree. I try to
communicate rather than hold things in and that may have given the
impression you are getting. Also, we seldom debate about all the things
that went right. :)
In at least one of my emails I tried to balance things out by pointing
out the positive. I should have tried harder.
With that clarification, I will try and respond to some of your notes below:
On 6/14/2007 5:08 PM, Thomas Narten wrote:
Your ideas that the "IETF is a meritocracy" and that "I* opinions are
afforded special status" are to say the least worry me.
If you start from a postion that one cannot trust the I*, or WG
chairs, etc. (as a number of your recent postings seem to do), then
yes, one can't help to be troubled. however, if your basic starting
point is one of distrust, it's hard to imagine rules or process or
some other management or oganizational structure that will actually
work and also prevent abuse. If there is bad intent, very few rules
will prevent bad actions.
In most cases, I am simply seeking more transparency and determinism in
our operation. One of the things that has come about from the
discussions is that perhaps a clear cut list of things to be done
post-BoF-session from the AD and/or the IAB would be useful. Now some
ADs already do this and others are trying to get there. That is a
positive thing.
What this might remove is an appearance of arbitrary or biased decision
making. The I-D tracker is a great example of this.
If indeed there were abuse or improper bias, such processes might help
independent evaluation.
IMO, you have to have a structure/process/rules that assumes people
are generally trying to do the Right Thing. For checks and balances,
you then also need appeals procedures and a willingness to speak up
and challenge parties when there is evidence of bad decision making.
Agreed. I guess I challenge when there is an appearance of bad decision
making. I would rather not wait until things get out of hand and then
attempt use of the hammer of appeals. That is just my personal preference.
In my experience, the vast majority of our leadership do try to do the
right thing. And when confronted with having made a bad decision,
there is usually a genuine effort to fix things and do the right
thing.
Agreed, the vast majority are indeed trying to do the right thing and
provide the right guidance based on their experiences in the leadership
positions. It is also important to point out that some of the positions
are extremely time consuming. I appreciate the I*'s and WG chairs'
service to the IETF very much. Many in fact go out of their way to
reach out and communicate and that is also very much appreciated.
How do those, I wonder, fit with what's written in the IETF mission
web page http://www.ietf.org/u/ietfchair/ietf-mission.html?
Your slides on "Bringing new work to the IETF" presented at the Prague
meeting that I have just looked at today also seem to be in
contradiction to the IETF mission. Your idea that some people's
opinions are afforded more weight than others' is certainly not how the
consensus process works. Do smarter people hum louder or get to raise
both of their hands? What are you saying?
If a respected security expert (one who has reviewed many documents,
contributed significantly to WG efforts, etc.) comes to a WG and says
"there is a problem here", but 5 WG members stand up and say "I
disagree and don't see a problem", do you really expect the security
expert's opinion to be given strictly equal weight and to just be
overruled since 5 voices are greater than 1?
Sure, but the the notions of "respected" and "expert" are fuzzy. I have
used that argument myself in the past, but it gets us into trouble
because the experts venture into topics where they are not experts at in
any sense of that word. Bernard and John allude to some of the related
issues.
The notion of "expert opinion" is also trouble for another reason. It
is a longer story and somewhat indirect, so I won't go into that here.
The idea that somehow the ADs and the IAB are above the rest of the
contributors is just wrong.
They are not above the rest in the sense of having absolute power and
having to answer to no one. Anyone is free to (and should) challenge
their arguments and decisions when they don't appear to be sound. And
clearly they have to be able to defend their positions and give
concrete or "actionable" justifications.
With that clarification, I don't see us being that far off from each
other in our understanding of the operation of the IETF.
I was challenging a decision and incorrectly thought that it was based
on the opinion of one or two I* member(s). I do believe that in the
specific case, there is no clear cut technical issue for such an opinion
to be weighted over others (I would say though that if there were a
clear technical issue, it doesn't matter who made the opposing case.
The technical issue should more or less stand on its own).
But to somehow think they
are just "equals" would relegate them to just doing process, and
taking away their ability to use judgement. I for one do not want to
go there because it will almost certainly lead to bad outcomes because
the process "rules" didn't allow for someone to just step and and say
"no".
I am not quite saying this either; our process allows ADs to take
decisive actions, but there are limitations, and rightfully so. Some of
the limitations are not clear cut and so we may have more of these
debates to get a clear sense. In one of my emails I made the point that
there are misunderstandings in some corners of the IETF that everything
is based on consensus; not everything is and that happens to be the
consensus.
In closing, I learned some things and some good things have come about
because I raised the issue. Some of those things could have happened
even due to private discussions. But I hope others on the list found
the open debate beneficial.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.
best regards,
Lakshminath (minus the dots, just in case there is any ambiguity)
Others have also said things I agree with (e.g., Ted and Jari
especially).
Thomas
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