An interesting list of issues that deserve wider discussion. The use of company employment as a proxy for conflict of interest is dated, in part due to the very success of our technologies. What is needed is a full declaration of the conflicts as part of the selection process. I was going to say that this can be in confidence, but I am not so sure. If someone is not prepared to openly state their COIs, then how can one be sure who’s interest they are working towards when doing regular work? The IETF’s claim is that we are an open transparent process, and that in my view requires declaring all conflicts of interest, especially when accepting a position of authority. When applied to Nomcom, the right process is for the chair to examine the COIs and accept/reject accordingly, but to put that statement on record as part of the challenge process. - Stewart > On 29 Jun 2020, at 20:13, Toerless Eckert <tte@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > [rant] > > The long time NOMCOM scheme we have, strongly punishes direct > employment by single big entities over other forms of loyalty > and ecosystem structures. I think this is a historic artefact > and lazyness in thinking about better solution, and it does IMHO > not well take into account the evolution we had in the IETF > over the last 20 years or so. > > How about all those one or two people (consulting) companies that > all have loyalty to a single undisclosed larger employer, like various > agencies of a single government ? AFAIK we do not ask, but > would we even consider different agencies of a single government > to be a single entity wrt. NOMCOM ? I don't think we have > done so when it comes to direct employment by them. > > I can attest that the interests and loyalties of different groups in > large vendors wrt. IETF leadership can easily be more diverse than > i would expect the goals of different agencies in a some governments > are. > > Not to speak of individuals who have a lot more loyalty to > the IETF purely from the self serving perspective that their > career in IETF may be longer than that in any individual employer > and behave accordingly. Wait. are we not all well advised to > all behave like that ? But we're obviously not trusted to do so > when working for a large employer. > > How about many small companies whose loyalties lie with the > specific business models such as those of OTTs/cloud-based ? > > How about the most likely subconcious "i have no idea on most > IETF area candidates, but in doubt i will vote for someone with > my own country/geo-area or cultural background" ? > > Why are big vendors the only aspect we try to protect NOMCOM > against ? > > Of course, i do not expect anything to improve, but at least > we could be more open about the fact how the NOMCOM scheme > is traditionally discriminatory in this respect. Because i don't > think people would even agree with this classiciation (discrimination). > > Having worked for 20 years for big vendors, i at least feld > this rule to be discrimination after having served once in > Nomcom and came out of it thinking that my specific vendor > association had no impact on my Nomcom choices. Sure, i can be > lying to myself. Who knows. > > Of course, i do favour for IAB and all IETF areas those candidates > who do not think the Internet infrastructure can be ignored > or commoditized because it just needs to macially come out > a wifi thingy into a notebook or cloud server and one just needs > to build applications on top of it. > > And exactly that candidate selection bias would likely be most > dominant in those nomcom candidates to which the discrimination > rule is applied, and if one wonders why the Internet infrastructure > standards evolution is (at least IMHO) so ossified where as the > applications running on top of it are not, then one has to wonder. > > Even if we cannot figure out how to improve the actual process, > it would be fairer to the IETF members working for large > employers if the Nomcom procedures would more explicitly > highlight the discrimination introduced to acknowledge this > unfairness. And write something like > > "we don't know how to do better, but if you have an > idea, please bring it forward". > > Just saying. > > [/rant] > > Cheers > Toerless > > On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 01:52:49AM +0000, Salz, Rich wrote: >> * It's a mechanism for mitigating the efforts of a few companies to stuff the Nomcom and get their employees on the I*. I'm not sure it's the best way, or sufficient, to assure the independence of leadership bodies but I don't think it's unreasonable. >> >> Strong agreement. > > -- > --- > tte@xxxxxxxxx >
