We can try to tighten the words down, and it may be a good thing to do so, but I think there's already a fairly strong primary line of defense that will come into operation. ISOC provides pretty strong visibility into its finances and will continue to do so. It will establish, as a matter of practice, the necessary reserves, and it will label and manage those reserves in a fashion that makes it clear that there is enough money for IASA's operational needs. And in the event there's a threat it cannot do so, it will raise the appropriate alarms fairly early. But my saying so is not enough to create the level of comfort Ted and others are asking for.
Moving over to the IASA side of the operation, the IAOC will be strongly focused on making sure there's enough money available to run the operation. This is where I think the primary line of defense is. It will be the IAOC that is watching to make sure there is enough money, and if there isn't, or even if there isn't adequate visibility and assurance, the IAOC will raise the alarm on behalf of the IETF. If it doesn't, it's failed one of its primary missions. The mere creation of the IAOC is, in my mind, a strong implementation of the level of protection being asked for here.
As I said above, I'm not opposed to having words in the BCP that make all of this clear, but I think it's, at best, only added protection in a scheme that already embodies a reasonably satisfactory level of protection.
Steve
Ted Hardie wrote:
At 5:12 PM +0100 1/19/05, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
I *think* this is a "not a problem" thing.... I believe the intent is that IETF can say "we think we need 6 months reserve for our stuff", and ISOC can say "that's no problem - we have general reserves that are larger than your 6 months + the reasonable risk on other stuff".
I agree that however it is ISOC can say "that's not a problem" is sufficient,
whether insurance, operational reserves, etc. But I believe we need to
be very careful on saying that general reserves are equivalent to the
operational reserve we've requested. I believe we are asking the ISOC
to ensure that they have this level of protection pretty much no matter
what happens to its other programs, and I believe that we need to be
very frank that this is what we're asking for. If ISOC says "we can ensure
the following level of reserve, which covers 6 months of IETF activity assuming
all else is at least marginal and 3 months if every other program goes belly up",
then we need to know that's what they're saying.
Again, I don't have any concerns about how these issues are met, but
I want us to be very, very clear on what we are asking for from ISOC.
And if we need to change those requests to be a reasonable partner to ISOC,
okay. But that clarity could save a lot of pain later on, and I think it is
important. The smallest amount of hand-waiving here and now can result in
lots of wind later on.
regards,
Ted Hardie
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