At 1:16 PM -0400 9/21/07, Russ Housley wrote:
Ted:
With great respect, I must disagree. The appeal says: "It is the position of
the appellants that this removal violates the IETF process by which working
groups are governed." This say to me that the appellants believe that Cullen
Jennings violated IETF process by replacing the GEOPRIV WG Co-chairs at the
time that he did so. I personally reread many BCPs as part of this appeal
review, and I could not find any process that was violated by this action.
Russ,
With equal respect, that statement is part of a much larger context,
and I think your reading
is too narrow. The immediately prior paragraph says, to take one piece of
context out:
In summary, the Co-chairs of the GEOPRIV working group conferred via telephone
with
Cullen Jennings regarding irregularities of the GEOPRIV session at IETF 68. Mr.
Jennings participated in the discussion (detailed below) and at the very end
of the
call, indicated that he desired to remove the Co-chairs. This was interpreted
as a
type of threat. The Co-chairs then published a message to the GEOPRIV mailing
list
describing the irregularities of the GEOPRIV meeting at IETF 68, specifically
in order
to ensure that IETF process would be followed for the WG. Following this
message,
Mr. Jennings sent a strongly worded message to the IETF list, and he removed
the
Co-Chairs. This removal occurred during the time period when the Co-chairs were
seeking mailing list consensus on the items discussed during the GEOPRIV
session at
IETF 68.
The working group chairs are charged in our process with determining
consensus of
working groups. If an AD removed working group chairs *in order to ensure
that a specific
determination were made*, that would clearly be contrary to the way the IETF is
meant to work,
no matter what the AD's baseline prerogatives for determining personnel would
be. (Note that
I am not saying that this what happened here, but this is a point where the
issue raised would
be salient). That action would be fundamentally a violation of the process for
determining
working group consensus, as the AD would be ensuring a specific consensus call
by putting in
someone willing to make that determination.
An appeal response by the IESG that said that they did not believe that
this is
what happened in this case seems to be what you intended (at least based on
Sam's
response). I must repeat, however, that this response appeared to me to focus
instead on the
baseline prerogative of the AD over that issue.
You are correct that any action taken by an AD can be appealed. In
particular, RFC 2026 states:
All appeals must be initiated within two months of the public
knowledge of the action or decision to be challenged.
In this particular appeal, there is a lot of background information that
describes events that happened outside of the two month window. These can
only be taken as context for the actions under appeal.
I appreciate your restatement of the important point that any action taken by
an AD can be appealed,
as well as Sam's personal statement to the same effect. If you are not willing
to consider re-stating
this appeal, a short statement by the IESG to that effect would be welcome. As
it stands, statements
by individual IESG members have no binding effect on later IESGs and the
community is not necessarily
notified when the interpretations change.
As a concrete suggestion:
"The IESG re-affirms that its reading of RFC 2026 is that any action made by an
Area
Director or the IESG may by made the subject of the conflict resolution
mechanisms
set out in Section 6.5 of RFC 2026. The IESG further wishes to highlight that
the primary
aim of the appeals mechanism set out there is to resolve conflicts and move the
IETF
as a whole towards consensus, and it urges all participants to approach them in
that light."
regards,
Ted
Russ
At 11:49 AM 9/21/2007, Ted Hardie wrote:
I believe this response (I hope inadvertently) appears to remove a valuable
principle by which the IESG acted on appeals.
I urge the IESG to reconsider the formulation of its response to the appeal
to clarify the issues raised below.
At 2:01 PM -0400 9/20/07, The IESG wrote:
IESG Response to the Appeal Against the Removal of the Co-chairs of the
GEOPRIV Working Group
Introduction
This is the IESG response to the appeal by Randall Gellens, Allison
Mankin, and Andy Newton posted at:
http://www.ietf.org/IESG/APPEALS/IESG_Appeal_20070622-final.pdf
Cullen Jennings recused from all discussion of this appeal.
The appeal raises three major points for the IESG to address:
1. The removal of the WG Chairs violates IETF process;
2. The actions taken interfered with the consensus process; and
3. There is a conflict of interest.
The appeal also proposes a remedy. This response includes some
comments about the proposed remedy.
1. The removal of the WG Chairs violates IETF process
RFC 2418 says:
Working groups require considerable care and feeding. In addition
to
general participation, successful working groups benefit from the
efforts of participants filling specific functional roles. The Area
Director must agree to the specific people performing the WG Chair,
and Working Group Consultant roles, and they serve at the
discretion
of the Area Director.
Since all WG chairs "serve at the discretion of the Area Director,"
they can be replaced at any time. The previous GEOPRIV WG co-chairs
were told about their removal in private before the public
announcement. This action was not required, but it is the most
polite way to handle the situation. Perhaps the public announcement
could have provided some rationale, but the authority to remove a WG
chair is clear.
In this response, the IESG appears to have read the appeal to state that the
removal of the chairs was not within the authority of the Area Director.
The appeal statement:
http://www3.ietf.org/IESG/APPEALS/IESG_Appeal_20070622-final.pdf
does not support this reading. It does not say that Area Directors
do not have the right to remove chairs, it says that the manner
and timing by which this was done interfered with the consensus process
inappropriately. The remainder of the IESG statement below appears
to attempt to address the interference issue. But in choosing to highlight
that all "WG chairs serve at the discretion of the Area Director",
the IESG appears to be saying that the personnel decisions of
an Area Director or the IESG are not subject to appeal.
During the time I served on the IESG, it was a general guideline that
*any decision* of an Area Director or the IESG was subject to appeal
to the IESG. While this is a broad reading of RFC 2026, Section 6.5,
I think it is an important point and a principle worth retaining. The
appeals process in the IETF is not simply a mechanism for establishing
who has what rights; it is a mechanism for conflict resolution. By
making all decisions subject to it, we ensure that conflicts which arise
are dealt with as early as possible and with as little process as possible.
If members of the community believe that a personnel decision
was made in a way the interfered with the proper operation of the
IETF, I believe asking the IESG to attempt to resolve the conflict is
an appropriate thing to do. This appeal response, which re-asserts the
authority of the AD to make the original decision, does not seem
to support this use of the IETF's normal conflict resolution mechanism.
Further, this appeal response appears to say that the only conflict resolution
mechanism open to those who disagree with a personnel decision
is to invoke one of the removal mechanisms for those who made it.
I hope that the IESG will re-structure its response to this appeal
to re-affirm that the conflict resolution mechanisms of the IETF are
available for this purpose. I also encourage the IESG (and, frankly,
the IETF community as a whole) to try to see the appeals process
as a way of resolving conflict, rather than a quasi-legal process for
determining
whether a remedy will be granted. I understand how previous appeals
have pushed everyone in that direction, but it is something we must
continue to resist. I have worked with Allison, Andy, and Randy for
many years, as well as Cullen and Jon. They are all experienced
IETF folks who have toiled for years to make things work; forcing them
into even more adversarial positions when conflicts do need resolution
is a mistake, at least I see it.
My thanks for your attention,
regards,
Ted
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