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Re: IAOC: delegating ex-officio responsibility

2011-04-15 04:00:23
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On Apr 15, 2011, at 1:19 AM, Leslie Daigle wrote:


Speaking as an individual, but an individual who helped set up this structure 
and who sat in the non-delegated ex officio IAB Chair position on the IAOC 
(and IETF Trust) for a couple of years, let me offer some comments.

As Bob noted, elsewhere in the thread, your draft does not describe how to 
delegate responsibilities, it describes how to allow alternatively fill the 
positions.  And I believe that is a fatal flaw.

The discussion on this thread certainly indicates that there isn't a clear 
grasp of what the responsibilities are for the positions in question.  The 
responsibilities are not:  show up for meetings/telecons, offer opinions 
about how to administer the IETF, and put in a vote when called upon, 
although those certainly are the functions expected.

You described the IAB Chair as "hub" as if that was a bad thing.   

Certainly not my intention to qualify it as 'bad'. The note was written from 
the perspective of "what is the work load and what are the tasks". Not from the 
perspective of what are the responsibilities of the chair. 

In fact, the one thing the Chair (of the IAB -- but it applies in analog to 
the IETF) needs to do is to support the IAB's functioning (through 
leadership, organization, note-taking, cajoling, listening, etc).  That 
doesn't mean the IAB Chair has to do the work of the whole IAB, but it does 
mean that an overall perspective is critical, and each Chair has to best 
organize her/himself to achieve the one task.

Agreed, being informed (as 'information hub') seems to be a prerequisite for 
gaining that overall perspective.


In setting up the IAOC as it is, the intent was to inject the IAB Chair's 
overall perspective into the IAOC's discussions, including the support for 
IAB activities.  It was not a question of simply finding more credible people 
to put on the IAOC.

If change is needed, the one path away from the fatal flaw seems to be to 
articulate the actual responsibilities of the IAB Chair (and IETF Chair and 
ISOC CEO, as appropriate) in the intended ex officio positions, such that it 
is possible to get agreement and external confirmation that the role is being 
properly fulfilled by whomever is selected to perform them.

Fair enough, and in addition, as a take-away from the thread so far:  those 
responsibilities go two ways: incoming and outgoing. It is not only the general 
perspective that the iChiefs bring to the IAOC but also what they take out of 
it. For instance; getting informed about the general state and health of things.

I guess I have some homework to do because at the moment I am not able to 
formulate the responsibility in a way that goes beyond (for the IAB role): 
providing the IAB perspective into IAOC decisions; and getting informed about 
IAOC activities that are relevant for the IAB and the activities it oversees.

- --Olaf

PS: Why does the following phrase come to mind: when in a hole stop digging...



________________________________________________________ 

Olaf M. Kolkman                        NLnet Labs
http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/            
I will start to use a new PGP key (ID 0x3B6AAA64) at the beginning
of May 2011.

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