Hi Dave,
I appreciate your feedback on the AdminRest process and documents, and I have no doubt that your comments are motivated by a desire to help the IETF make the best decisions possible. I think that is true of everyone involved in this process, even when we are strongly disagreeming about what the best decisions would be.
I'm not sure, though, how your comments relate to proposal we are discussing, Scenario O.
In Scenario O, ISOC would do exactly the same "job" for the IETF administrative process that it currently does for the IAB, the RFC Editor, etc. ISOC would provide an organizational home and some accounting and fiscal support, but ISOC is not expected to determine the IETF's administrative needs and/or choose contractors or partners to meet those needs. Those tasks would be performed by a largely IETF-selected body called the IAOC and a new employee called the IAD.
The way I think about this is that the IETF would choose a group (the IAOC) to do the work that you are saying that we need to do -- determine the details of what needs to be done, and _then_ try to find people to do it (including a well-qualified IAD and contractors, as needed). Having the existing leadership go through the process of defining the IETF's administrative needs would, IMO, just be silly -- we don't have the time or expertise to do this well, especially while trying to do our other (and arguably more important) job of running the IETF standards process.
CNRI/Foretec has made a commitment to continue providing secretariat services throughout this transition (for which I am _very_ grateful and think that the rest of the IETF should be, too), so there is no reason, IMO, to treat this as an emergency situation. IMO, we should pick the best qualified people to work on this effort, put them on the IAOC and let them do the work in a careful and considered way.
The primary goal of this effort, at least in my personal opinion, is not necessarily to change service providers, but to manage our relationships with our providers so that the finances are transparent and so that the priorities and success criteria are set by a group that is accountable to the IETF community.
In the end, it may turn out that some or all of the current tasks performed by Foretec will continue to be performed by Foretec -- IMO, that can only be determined after the IAOC decides how the work should be structured and what mechanism we should use to identify the contractors to do this work.
If you don't think that this is the best way for the IETF to proceed, what would you suggest that we do instead?
Margaret
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