April,
What you say is all true. But whether the legal employer is ISOC with an MoU defining how the IETF controls the Admin Director, or a hypothetical new entity with by-laws defining how the IETF controls the Admin Director, doesn't change much IMHO.
Brian
April Marine wrote:
On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
The benefit of having an Admin Director is that this person will have responsiveness to IETF needs and desires as the main item in their job description. I think that is much more significant than whether the person works for ISOC or a new entity. It's the person that counts, not their legal employer.
This is a very ietf-like point of view, IMO. We are all about individual effort. Realistically, however, *both* the person AND their employer matter.
I have worked at companies that contract to a US federal agency. People who could give me direction were my line manager at my company, my government task manager, and the government headquarters funding manager. And yet my job was to serve users, my ostensible "customers." Conflicts between these folks were not uncommon. Resolving them, in general, meant resorting to the written contract (task plan) and understanding the *government's* hierarchy of who could give what sort of direction. However, in the end, my company boss could reassign me and put someone else in my place without consulting the government.
The person "we" hire will report to their boss at whatever company they work for. The company and "the ietf" will have some agreement regarding duties and what constitutes acceptable performance. I'm sure "the ietf" will have some input about who is hired. However, if some influential IETF person or group (e.g. IETF Chair, IAB Chair or some vocal part of the IESG) got it into their head that they didn't like the Admin type person, could they fire them? What sort of process would that involve? Would, say, the ISOC *have* to fire them if "the ietf" wanted them to? Who would face employment liability, etc., in such a case? Probably not "the ietf" as we currently understand it.
This is the point I was trying to make at the plenary. No matter how great a person we hire, that person is reporting to their boss in whatever corporate entity that boss works for. And no matter how great that entity is or is currently, what protection will be in place structurally/contracturally if the current people change (as they will)?
April
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