--On Tuesday, September 20, 2011 14:16 -0400 Leslie Daigle
<leslie(_at_)thinkingcat(_dot_)com> wrote:
Hi,
I had the comments below on a previous incarnation of "how to
fix the IAOC because Chairs are overloaded".
I have to say -- I don't think the substantive points are
addressed in the new proposal, which leaves the Chairs as
spectators to the IAOC process.
I don't think you can disagree with me that, with no vote
(recognized voice) in a committee's work, there's even less
possibility to find the hours to keep up with the substance of
discussions and thus be able to contribute meaningfully to a
discussion when the time comes.
As ex-officio non-voting members, with the main responsibility
for representing IAB and IESG views and needs resting with
someone else, that seems ok to me. At the same time, I think
you underestimate the ability of the people involved to read in
really quickly if that is necessary/ important.
Substantively -- this takes the Chairs off the IAOC, just as
the original proposal did, and my comments/confusion/questions
below are still current for me.
I think I responded to most of these in a different subthread
earlier this week. The remarks below are just a quick summary.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: I-D Action:draft-klensin-iaoc-member-00.txt
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:06:07 -0400
From: Leslie Daigle <leslie(_at_)thinkingcat(_dot_)com>
To: IETF discussion list <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
CC: John C Klensin <klensin(_at_)jck(_dot_)com>
I'm having troubles reconciling a couple of things:
1/ Recent discussion (different draft) on the importance of
the IAOC
implementing IETF (and IAB) policy and admin requirements; not
having
the IAOC *setting* those requirements;
2/ Suggesting that the IAB & IETF Chairs should not be on the
IAOC.
Leslie,
You appear to be assuming that the proposal is somehow removing
the IAB and IESG (and ISOC) representation/ presence on the IAOC
and Trust. No one has suggested that. What has been suggested
is that the determination of who is most able to effectively
represent those bodies can sensibly be left up to them rather
than assuming that the Chairs are somehow endowed with special
knowledge and wisdom that no one else shares.
I think it would be really stupid for the IESG, IAB, or ISOC
leadership to put someone on the IAOC who wasn't thoroughly
familiar with the thinking in those bodies about IASA issues and
competent in the issues the IAOC and Trust address. I think we
can trust those bodies to avoid being stupid (except possibly as
a tradeoff against worse choices) and don't need to invent rules
that ban stupidity.
As it stands the IETF Chair is in a unique position to
understand all
the requirements of the IETF community and IETF administrative
activities. There isn't someone else who can step in: all
other IESG
members are tasked, as a primary responsibility, with looking
after their particular areas.
Sometimes I feel as if the IETF Chair is "tasked" with doing a
good Superman imitation -- understanding everything, knowing
everything, leaping tall buildings... Despite my frequent role
as a critic, I'm also impressed with how good a job recent
incumbents have done at that. But I also think it is an
unreasonable expectation along both the knowledge and time
dimensions and that there are usually people on the IESG (and
elsewhere) who can do parts of the job (including broad
understanding and perspective) as well. I also note that
nothing in any of these proposals prevents the IESG from
appointing the Chair to the voting position on the IAOC if they
conclude that is the best choice after all tradeoffs are
considered and the Chair has the available cycles. The
proposal increases flexibility; it need not actually change the
membership of the IAOC even if some of us assume that it would.
The IAB Chair similarly sits at the confluence of all the
issues hitting
the IAB, and is specifically responsible for tracking them so
that they
get addressed by the IAB. While the IAB Chair can, in theory,
delegate
actions on particular topics, it at least used to be the case
that some
tasks are too tricky or unappealing to get other
involvement(too admin,
not enough architectural content). And, even with successful
delegation
of individual tasks, the IAB Chair retains the perspective
across all
the activities -- technical, IANA, RFC Editor, etc.
I can't speak for you, Olaf, or Bernard, but I just don't
believe it. There are often people who have perspectives as
good as the Chair. That is likely to get more differentiated
over time as the Program model permits more tasks to be spread
around, probably with the IAB Chair not intimately involved in
some of them. Indeed, if any member of the IAB is guaranteed
to have the perspective you are asking for, it would be the Exec
Dir, not the Chair.
...
Pulling these positions off the IAOC would succeed in
weakening the
IAOC, even as it increases the stress levels in the positions
as the
respective Chairs try to figure out what is going on with the
administrative support for the balls they are trying to keep
moving.
I don't think "weakening the IAOC" has been convincingly
demonstrated. Some people believe that it will weaken the IAOC,
some believe that replacing the Chairs with people who have more
cycles to pay attention to the IAOC (and possibly even a closer
match in terms of skills) would, in the long run, strengthen the
IAOC. Perhaps letting go of the IAOC memberships would cause
stress on some Chairs because they felt they needed much closer
involvement in what was going on with the IASA, but then they
should persuade the relevant bodies to put the Chairs into the
voting positions. I would question the appropriateness of a
chair who felt that he or she had to be personally and
intimately involved in everything, but that is another matter.
best,
john
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