Re: draft-klensin-iaoc-member-01 (was: Re: I-D Action: draft-hardie-iaoc

On 2/18/2016 9:41 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 12:29:09AM -0500, Michael StJohns wrote:
> > There's what's written down and then there's what actually happens.
> Ok.
>
> > 2 years as chair so I'm not all that worried about your scenario.  And
> > there's a lot of pressure to have some stability in the IAB chair's
> > position, which translates into similar stability in the IAOC IAB position.
> Ok.
>
> > If you want to change who serves on the IAOC from the IAB, then we need to
> > have a rule with respect to that appointment that gives us a similar result
> This doesn't follow.  Your argument is of the form, "We currently have
> a formal rule that the appointment is nominally for one year, with a
> possibility of it being shorter; but social pressure means that in
> practice it is more stable.  Therefore, in the new system we need a
> formal rule that enforces that greater stability."  The premises don't
> really support your argument.  It'd be just as reasonable to conclude,
> "Therefore, there should be a social expectation that people be
> prepared to do this for two years or more."
Close - it's  "Therefore, there should be an expectation that people be 
prepared to do this for two years or more" (note the lack of "social" 
here).  With the IAB chair as the ex-officio member, we have an 
expectation based on experience and current social conventions that 
he/she will be in the IAB chari job for 2 or more years (and therefore 
in the IAOC member job for 2 years).  I don't see a similar long held 
convention (social or otherwise) that would necessarily apply to the 
non-chair IAB member joining the IAOC, so putting in as an explicit 
expectation seems to make sense.

>   My experience of the IETF
> suggests that we are better off with more social conventions and fewer
> formal rules, because the formal rules all require exception handling,
> recovery rules, and so on; whereas when social conventions turn out
> not to work perfectly you can treat the case as the one-off that it
> usually is.
Mostly I agree with the above about letting social conventions rule. But 
you want to go from a current model where the expectation (and 
experience) is that we're going to have someone from the IAB on the IAOC 
for at least two years (with the concomitant benefit that said IAB 
member gains experience working with the IAOC), to a model where there 
is no expectation or even stated desire for the appointed IAB member to 
stick with the IAOC <hyperbole>past a change of underwear</hyperbole>.
draft-hardie-iaoc-iab-update talks about how the IAB might modify its 
charter, but doesn't provide concrete language for the IAOC charter on 
the change (e.g. the program language you have in the draft shouldn't 
become a dependency in the IAOC charter).  Given the current draft (and 
your comments), I'd read the change as:
"Replace 'the IAB chair shall serve as an ex-officio voting member of 
the IAOC' to 'the IAB shall select one of its members to serve as an 
ex-officio voting member of the IAOC.  The IAB shall be the sole 
authority for deciding how long and in what manner that IAB ex-officio 
member will serve. '"
I can see various scenarios like:  "I'm tired of doing this after 6 
months - we've got a new class of IAB members coming in, stick one of 
them with it"  or "George, we don't like how you voted on the last site 
selection so we're replacing you effectively immediately" or "My boss 
wants me to lobby for an IETF in XXX, so put me on the IAOC - when I've 
accomplished that, I'll give the job to someone else" or "Someone else 
needs the job for resume building" or "I want to change jobs - my new 
org will support my time on the IAB, but thinks the IAOC is a waste of 
time - since I haven't given any commitment to stay on the IAOC, let me 
just dump that responsibility".  The outside (e.g. non IAB) would simply 
see "X was replaced with Y" with no real understanding of why the change 
took place.
 Everyone else on the IAOC has term requirements/expectations of a sort 
- and I mean everyone else.  Why should the IAB be treated any 
differently?  And I'm specifically talking about language that modifies 
the IAOC charter and not internal IAB changes (that only require IAB 
approval for said changes).  I want there to be an expectation expressed 
by the IAOC towards the IAB of who and how the IAB will provide its 
member, with the understanding that extreme cases (member gets sick, 
member gets fired from his job, member ends up in too many conflicts of 
interest etc) requiring replacement may occur, but that generally 
service on the IAOC has a term and commitment obligation.
[Preemptive note on the programs - given that there's not a lot of 
transparency on how the IAB selects the various programs, members, leads 
etc, there's not a lot of "social expectation" on how long a given 
program lead normally serves, the criteria for replacement, etc. That 
may change over time, but for now, I believe this is a reasonable 
outsider's view.  ]
In any event, I think I'm done with this discussion. I'm not saying 
anything above that I haven't before, nor have you I would say. I'll 
continue to monitor the chatter, but I'll reserve any comments for the 
next round of documents.  I think draft-hardie-iaoc-iab-update is a dead 
end without specific charter change language.
Later, Mike


> > You make that sound like its a bad thing?
> Yes.  See above.
Stability is a bad thing?  Hmm....


> Best regards,
>
> A