John,
Bob,
I think you and Olaf (and myself and others) are addressing two
rather different questions. Your note seems to assume the
question is "how to make the IAOC work better". Your answer, if
I understand it correctly, is "it works fairly well today isn't
broken, let's not fix it". If that were the question, I'd agree.
No that is not correct, you have it reversed. My concern is that this proposed
change would likely make the IAOC work worse. That is, I think it would have a
negative impact on the operations of the IETF and that is why I am concerned.
I am sympathetic to the leadership's overload problem, but think we should take
a broader view. For example, another approach might be to split the IAB's
responsibilities into two groups, one focused on architecture (the IAB's
traditional role) and another new group to deal with the parts of the job that
seems to be growing (liaisons, RFC Editor, etc.). Something like this might
make the NOMCOM job easier in the sense that it wouldn't have find people who
were strong in architecture and policy administration (I don't think that is
the best description of the rest, but can't think of anything better at the
moment).
Bob
But, remembering that the IASA has only the purpose of making
the extended IETF (including the IAB) work more efficiently, I
see a somewhat different question. The roles and resource
requirements of the IAB and IETF Chairs have expanded
dramatically over the last several years.. expanded to the point
that the appointing bodies may soon have to choose, not among
the best people for the job, but from those who have spare time
and resources on their hands or, worse, who work for
organizations who see particular value in having one of their
employees in those positions. We have been lucky so far in
finding very good people despite those pressures, but we can't
count on its lasting.
That situation suggests to me that we should be asking the
question of how we can reduce the absolute requirements
associated with the IAB and IETF Chair positions. If whomever
is in those positions has the time, resources, and interest to
also serve on the IAOC, I'm very much in favor of that. But,
if an individual --or the Nomcom-- have to choose between
exclusion of the best candidate because there aren't enough
resources for him or her to do the [rest of the] Chair job _and_
the IAOC versus spreading the workload out, then I think it is
in the community's interest to have an alternative. My
personal preference continues to be to make the decision of who
from the IAB (and potentially the IESG) serves on the IAOC be
the decision of the IAB or IESG respectively rather than using
the "delegation" model Olaf suggests but, in practice, I think
it really makes no difference because any reasonable Chair is
going to discuss those options with the relevant body.
Even if we were not worried about overall workload, we've
discovered at several recent IETF meetings that the schedule for
IAOC-related meetings keeps the IAB and IETF Chairs out of other
meetings that might, objectively, have been important for them
to attend. So it is not clear to me that having those two
people on the IAOC in person is optimal for the community,
independent of whether or not it is desirable for IASA.
From that point of view, the right question from the IASA/IAOC
perspective should not be "is it working well enough that there
is no internal reason to make a change" but "can this type of
change be made without serious damage".
As far as the Trust is concerned, while we couldn't change the
relationship until recently, we can now: if the linkage between
Trust and IAOC membership is interfering with the simultaneous
successful operation of the Trust and the efficient operation of
the IAB and/or IESG, let's just change it.
john
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