Hi Graham,
I'd like to make a couple of comments on your post -- not to argue with you (because I think we are in basic agreement), but just to clarify my earlier comments.
At 12:31 PM +0100 9/6/04, graham.travers@xxxxxx wrote:
4. However, Margaret has written about problems with existing arrangements. While option A or B *might* solve the CNRI/Secretariat issues, how would it help the ( apparent ) RFC Editor issues ?
I do not personally believe that there any significant issues with the current organizational relationship between the RFC Editor and the IETF (as represented by the IAB & ISOC). We have a well-defined relationship, defined in a publicly-available MOU. The funding model of the RFC Editor is well-understood, we have clear visibility into what we are funding, the ownership of the IETF's intellectual property is clear (currently owned by ISOC), and I personally think that we're getting an excellent deal.
What I pointed out was a problem with having two different funding pools, and therefore two different corporations (ISOC and CNRI/Foretec, in this case) that claim ownership of the real or intellectual property that is purchased or developed using money from those funding pools.
Perhaps I was vague enough to be unintelligible, so I'll be more explicit. But, please do remember that I am not a lawyer and do not fully understand the legal aspects of these things.
One of the things that I would like to see us do is to integrate (to some extent, anyway) the I-D Tracker and the RFC Editor Queue management tools, so that we can track a document from the time it is published as an I-D through RFC publication. I have every belief that the RFC editor would cooperate in this effort, but we can't make real progress in this area because we (the IETF leadership and/or the IETF community) don't have the source code to the I-D Tracker and we haven't been allowed to access any tools that can do database reporting (full data dumps, for example) from the I-D Tracker. The explanation I have been given for why we do not have these things is that CNRI/Foretec claims ownership of the I-D Tracker (the source code, the machines it runs on and the data it contains) because it was developed by them. Since there is no contract in place that asserts IETF ownership of anything that is developed using our meeting fees, they may even be correct.
If one organization were funding (and therefore owned) the tools on both sides, we could not get into a situation where one organization was claiming ownership of a vital IETF tool and would not give us (the IETF leadership and/or the IETF community) the access necessary to leverage that tool across other IETF functions.
As I understand it, the RFC Editor contract is already managed by ISOC. If we have a problem with the way that relationship works now, why would it help to put the CNRI/Secretariat relationship on the same footing ? Since I don't know what the specific problems are, this needs to be addressed by someone with the benefit of IESG / IAB experience.
There are several people with substantially more IESG/IAB experience than I have, so I will allow them to comment further (if they like) on the RFC Editor relationship. However, as I said above, I didn't mean to imply that there was anything significantly wrong with the organizational relationship between the RFC Editor and the IETF, and I don't think that there is anything wrong.
5. Section 3.1 of Carl's Report ( Page 20 ) states "Evaluation of applicants might consist of a search committee appointed by the IETF Chair." Isn't the appointment of committee members what the IETF empowers the Nomcom for ?
IMO, this is a good point.
That said, I think that we need to determine the basic structure of this function before we determine the mechanism that we should use to hire the Administrative Director to run it. If we go with the approach that I have suggested where a community-selected (by which I mean NomCom-selected) board would run the administrative functions of the IETF, then I think that the Administrative Director should be selected by the members of that Board. Also, if we do decided to organize as a portion of ISOC (under either Scenario A or B), it might make sense for the President/CEO of ISOC to have some say in who is hired to work within her organization in this capacity.
Margaret
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