Hi Andrew,
At 07:29 AM 01-07-2022, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
I think one could visit the archives and meeting minutes of the IASA2
WG in order to discover whether this was thoroughly discussed. I
would suggest your doubts are not entirely well-founded.
The only minutes available in the datatracker are at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/minutes-102-iasa2/ There isn't any
occurrence of a discussion about jurisdiction. It is similar to the
information available at
https://tools.ietf.org/wg/iasa2/minutes?item=minutes-102-iasa2-01.html
I found one email in the archives. The email does not have much
information, in my opinion.
My recollection of the matter is that, during the discussion, there
were effectively three models:
(1) _Status quo_, in which IETF was merely an organized activity
of the Internet Society. This was not generally regarded as
acceptable for the reasons that led to the IASA2 discussions in
the first place, and so was quickly discarded.
(2) A completely independent entity, totally divorced from the
Internet Society.
(3) A disregarded entity, in which the IETF remained formally a
part of the Internet Society and retained the benefits of that,
while developing some independence through a separate board and
some governance rules.
(3) is what we chose. The way this works in law (IANAL, and this is
oversimplified) is that the IETF is a separate legal entity with its
own governance and bylaws, but as a legal matter has exactly one
member (the Internet Society); and, for tax purposes _is_ the Internet
Society. This is why, for instance, the IETF LLC does not have an
independent charitable status determination -- it gets its status
automatically because it is part of the Internet Society. You can
think of IETF LLC as a wholly-owned subsidiary if that makes it easier
to think about, though it's not precisely true because of the nature
of both LLCs and not-for-profit corporations.
I remember that there was a discussion about the model outlined
above. I would say that the finance and legal aspects is that the
discussions can be quite convoluted, based on my short exposure to
those topics.
As a matter of openness, I'll mention that I currently don't have a
position on IASA3.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
