--On Tuesday, 12 October, 2004 18:37 -0700 Dave Crocker
<dhc2@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> My focus is on knowing what the details of the jobs are that we
> want done. Referring to the interface(s) is a convenient
> technique for trying to surface those details.
>
> Currently we do not have the details. What we are doing is
> like buying a building or a vehicle before we really understand
> what uses they are going to be put to. This leads to thinking
> that those details are trivial. They aren't.
>...
Dave,
While I am somewhat sympathetic to what I think you are arguing,
I need to clarify --and probably disagree with-- two points you
have raised specifically. The analogies and metaphors you use
can be very helpful if they are accurate matches to the
situation. If they are not, they just add to the general
confusion.
Let's start with the one above. You have been around the IETF
for a long time -- longer than I have and much longer than any
of the current members of the IESG or IAB. You also have a long
history of paying careful attention to process issues. I
suggest that, even with that background, you had little real
input into how we got the administrative support mechanisms we
have today and may not even have had visibility into it. To use
your analogy above, the way we "bought" the current vehicle was
to have someone drive it up and say "you just bought this and
you are going to pay for it at rates we will determine without
asking you". Not even close to "really understand the uses",
much less being able to make effective judgments on them.
While I'm very concerned about visibility of decision-making to
the community, and a set of activities and answers that I, too,
consider handwaving (or worse), I also don't aspire to
perfection as the result of this process. I'd be happy with
"significant improvement" -- in responsiveness, in financial
transparency, and in efficiency with which it is possible for us
to execute on standards-process activities for which
"administrative support" are on the critical path.
And, because I don't share the optimism of some members of the
IESG and IAB about their ability to determine and manage the
details of an administrative process, especially while doing the
"jobs" to which the community has appointed them, I'm far more
interested in getting to an administrative process model that
can develop the highly specific details for which I think you
are asking. I also think that, if we try to get all of those
details specified at this time, we will almost certainly get
some of them wrong. Asking that we wait on them until we are
sure is an almost guaranteed recipe for doing nothing for an
extended period, and I am convinced that course of action would
just lead us further downhill. What I want to buy is a
structure and set of decision-making mechanisms, not a specific
end result at the "who gets hired to do what" level, if only
because, no matter how specific we get, the structure and
mechanisms had best be there to fix it.
Second, you keep repeating variations on...
> ... justification for handing the task to ISOC
> -- or anyone else who is inexperienced or has done the job
> badly.
Others have tried to explain what is going on here, at least
from their perspective. Let me try an explanation from mine,
noting that I agree with many of the others too. ISOC had a bad
time a few years ago. Their finances were a mess and their
organizational structure was perhaps worse. If they were still
in that state, trusting them for anything -- even the small
expansion and rationalization of what they are doing for us
already that I, and others, think this is -- would be pretty
close to insane. But they aren't in that state. They learned
from it, reorganized creatively and appropriately, changed
management and, as far as anyone I have been able to identify
who has looked at the current situation can tell, are completely
stable.
My taste is such that I'd rather trust an organization that has
been through hard times and learned how to restructure and
survive to greater stability than they ever had before, rather
than an organization that is a figment of the collective
imagination of several people and that therefore has no
experience doing anything at all. If ISOC's past mistakes and
difficulties are to be held against them forever, then it is
almost impossible for any real organization or person to claim
qualification for doing anything. Certainly you and I have made
our share of mistakes and that fact doesn't seem to disqualify
us from criticizing aspects of the current plan (or lots of
other things).
At least as important, as others have pointed out, no one is
planning on having ISOC actually operate, e.g., an IETF
Secretariat, in the same way that CNRI/Foretec has been doing.
If they were, it would be legitimate to criticize that choice on
the grounds that ISOC doesn't have that experience. But, if we
carry that logic very far, only CNRI and Foretec does. If we
consider them on the basis of the experiences of the last few
years, then we have exactly one experienced candidate (Foretec),
who has done the job badly, and a selection of more or less
inexperienced candidates. That would leave us no choice at
all, so I prefer someone less experienced than Foretec, chosen
by mechanisms that really involve IETF choices and controls.
Finally, while I disagree with several of the apparent details,
and suspect you might as well, and I think some of the staffing
implications are less obvious than they might be (and have
commented on that subject on-list) Carl's document is actually
fairly specific on the structural details for getting the job
done, and Scenario O is even more specific. If you have
specific objections, or see things that are missing, please
raise those issues, rather than claiming or implying that the
existing materials are too vague to even identify specifically
what is missing or wrong.
john
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