Howdy,
I'd like to make some comments on the issues discussed below. Before
diving into the details, I'd like to make two meta-comments. First,
I believe that the chairs' messages noted that they had received
private messages
of concern, and that their e-mail was expressed as a response to
those messages.
As chairs, it is their responsibility to take the community's
concerns seriously
and to respond to them. My reading of their response is that they
believe
that the IETF 68 meeting of GEOPRIV was sufficiently unusual that
it requires us
to be very careful to follow our standard procedures in following
up the meeting,
so that the overall process is obviously fair and is as transparent
as possible.
This serves the interests of those who were at the GEOPRIV meeting at
IETF 68, as well as those who participate but could not physically
attend
the meeting. Reading Cullen's response, it looks like he saw this
as the
chairs' impression and reaction as individuals; maybe that is part
of it,
but I believe is important to see this in terms of the view of the
participant
community (of which the Chairs certainly form part). I also
believe that their
suggested response is basically "do business as usual, and make
sure that's obvious",
which I believe is non-controversial as a way forward.
Secondly, I believe that this response has picked up some style
elements of the original chairs' message and exaggerated them,
falling into quasi-legal language that hurts us as a group of folks
trying to
get this done. As I read the original message, the core is that
there were three
unusual aspects of the GEOPRIV meeting at IETF 68: the schedule
changed, which
had some unfortunate consequences; the meeting agenda changed more
than usual;
and the way the group made progress was at the far end of our
process. Any
one of those, alone, might be enough to cause us to want to be
careful of the
follow-up. All of them together are definitely enough. Rather
than push against
how any one of these points got to be, let's see if we can agree on
the way
forward. I think, honestly, we already do, and bogging down in how we
got here is not that useful. As you'll see below I see some
mistakes I made
here, and I suspect others do as well. Let's learn from them and
move on.
At 1:23 PM -0700 4/18/07, Cullen Jennings wrote:
In the email below, the GEOPRIV chairs express serious concerns
about the process surrounding the GEOPRIV meeting at IETF 68 in
Prague. In particular, they allege:
- That improper meetings occurred between the ADs and the working
group participants and that this "potentially harmed the integrity
and transparency of GEOPRIV and the IETF"
- That there was "the appearance that there may have been an
attempt to manipulate IETF process to hold and predetermine the
outcome of consensus calls" on the part of the Area Directors.
In the first place, the Area Directors take these concerns, and
grave allegations, very seriously. Area Directors who manipulate
schedules and agendas in order to predetermine the outcome of
consensus calls should, in our opinion, be summarily recalled, and
if the GEOPRIV working group chairs believe this transpired in
IETF 68, we urge them to pursue such a recourse.
I urge them not to. Let's try to work this out without creaking
into effect a never-used
aspect of our process. Pushing it to that extreme looks contrary
to our usual effort
to achieve consensus; let's continue talking to each other
instead. If either the
Area Directors or chairs is no longer willing to talk about the
problems and resolve
them, I think we're in a sorry state. If we've gotten there, let's
try and back away.
While we speak to the particulars in detail below, in short we
believe that our efforts before, during and after the GEOPRIV
meeting at IETF 68 were limited to encouraging a set of
participants to arrive at a consensus which was long overdue, and
did not extend to steering said consensus in any particular
direction. In this regard we do not believe we overstepped our
bounds, either in the letter or the spirit of the process.
As indicated in my message of March 25, we agree with the GEOPRIV
chairs that the hums taken in prague need to be confirmed on the
mailing list. As we all know, the contents of a room in Prague are
not equivalent to an IETF working group; only formal decisions of
this mailing list are definitive for the working group. Too often
working group minutes are published and completely ignored, which
only leads to further discord down the road when participants
resist that to which they are presumed to have assented. This is
particularly important in this case because opinion in the room
was so closely divided. So in the interests of making progress,
please do review the results of Prague carefully!
To the particular concerns of the GEOPRIV chairs:
<> Agenda: The Area Directors did meet privately with members of
the GEOPRIV working group prior to the meeting at IETF 68. Indeed,
we met with as many stakeholders as possible, specifically to
ascertain how the group could move forward on a set of contentious
issues which had been unresolved for some time.
As a participant, I volunteered to meet with James Winterbottom to
discuss some
of his concerns and to understand better how some aspects of his
proposal helped
advance the work of the group. Looking back over the email
exchange leading
up to that, I realize now that it would have better for me to add my
willingness to talk to other folks with other points of view, as
some other
folks might have misconstrued my message as singling James out.
Because I was serving on the IESG at the time, some folks might
have misunderstood which hat I was wearing when I made that offer.
I apologize for that, especially if
that contributed to any of the feeling that one position was being
favored.
I think the same could be said for Jon and Cullen. Once they
started meeting
privately with folks from GEOPRIV to discuss how to move forward, a
note
to the group that they were looking for input on that would have been
useful. In particular, it might have identified folks that Jon and
Cullen
didn't immediately recognize as "stakeholders", and it would have
given
those not at the physical meeting time to send email or otherwise
contact
them as ADs. I don't think that would have had a huge impact on the
outcome, honestly, but it would have increased the transparency of
what
was going on. That goes to the point the chairs have made. In the
middle
of an IETF, jet-lagged and hyper-busy, I think we have to agree
that this is an easy
mistake to make. But I hope we can agree that an open call for
input would
be a good thing to be sure of in the future.
In the course of these meetings we solicited input on how progress
could be made at the meeting, and strongly encouraged working
group members to find a path to consensus. We came to believe that
focusing on core issues that were impeding progress, such as the
longstanding disagreement on an HTTP-based Layer 7 Location
Configuration Protocol (henceforth L7LCP) rather than ancillary
issues like location signing, would be the best use of working
group facetime.
I'm not sure everyone sees location signing as ancillary; it's just
momentarily
less contentious.
The reality is that the group was deadlocked on whether to do an L7LCP
and remained so for a long time after the idea was first
introduced. This
was later exacerbated by a choice in which document to use as a
baseline if
the working group did take it up. This latter choice was bitterly
contentious
and had been so for some time. I agree with the choice to make
resolving
it a priority, but I also see the problem raised by the chairs: it
was not the
focus of the original agenda and some, but not all, of the folks
going into the
meeting knew that there would be a proposal to change the focus of
the meeting.
Since that level of agenda bash is unusual, you can see that as
adding to a
concern about transparency.
There is always concern that decisions made in situations like that
may be
influenced by partisans packing the room with folks who are not
typical
participants. Whether that happened in this case or not, or on
which side,
is not really that important. The reality is that our processes
have a way of
handling that, by making sure that the mailing list is always used
as the final
decision-making venue for the working group. For less contentious
issues, that can
be a simple "Anyone disagree with the consensus of the room?". I
believe
that for contentious issues, more care may be required to state
carefully
what the proposal is and how consensus will be determined.
I don't think the chairs' proposal for how to move forward requires
more than
that, and I don't see any issues inside the WG with that as part of
the plan
on how to move forward.
While it is certainly true that the Area Directors knew they
wanted to use the agenda time in GEOPRIV to make progress on core
issues, if necessary at the expense of existing agenda items,
there was no concrete agenda to that effect privately circulated
prior to the meeting, verbally or in writing, to our knowledge. In
fact, the agenda was bashed at the start of the GEOPRIV meeting by
a participant, albeit one whose counsel on making progress the
Area Directors had sought prior to the meeting. Critically, that
agenda bash was vetted by the room, as any other agenda bash would
be - this was not a change made by fiat of the Area Directors. We
strongly believe that there was a will in the room to prioritize
and resolve the issues which were bashed onto the agenda. We
furthermore took specific hums about the preparedness of the group
to make decisions about these issues, which under the
circumstances were required to proceed.
<> Scheduling: There certainly were irregularities with the
scheduling of the GEOPRIV meeting at IETF 68. That much said,
scheduling the meeting track for the RAI Area is infamous, and
last minute changes in timeslot are hardly unheard of (we had a
similar one at the previous IETF). In this instance, the
scheduling problem was ultimately caused by the unavailability of
working group chairs. Two of the three GEOPRIV chairs, and one of
the two SPEERMINT chairs, were unable to attend IETF 68 at all. It
transpired that the SPEERMINT chair who could attend was unable to
make the SPEERMINT timeslot due to a family obligation elsewhere
in the world. As the GEOPRIV chairs note below, Henning
Schulzrinne had previously been identified as a stand-in co-chair
for GEOPRIV. We were thus left with the prospect of seeing
SPEERMINT go forward with no available chairs, versus GEOPRIV
going forward with at least one previously identified stand-in
chair. We thus made a last minute decision to!
find the lesser of two evils by swapping the timeslots of the
groups. This was a decision made at the last minute to find the
lesser of two evils. We certainly didn't anticipate all of the
ramifications this change would have in terms of attendance, and in
retrospect, we may not have made the most best choice. The choice
was not, however, motivated by a desire to prevent participants
from attending either meeting.
Thanks for your clear description. I'm sure that Andy didn't
anticipate his arm getting
broken prior to IETF 68, and we all recognize that these things
happen. The concern
that might be raised would be that Henning is strongly identified
with one of the
proposals that was being considered in the revised agenda, and he
had never before
been part of calling consensus in a GEOPRIV meeting. As has
already been noted,
Henning stepped away from that duty when his own topic was under
discussion.
Having been in the room, I can say that I did not see it as a
problem at the time.
I believe, though, that the chairs are telling us, at least in
part, how it appeared
to those who were not in the room. I think the right thing to do
is acknowledge
that is a potential perception, and let it guide us in how we
implement the
consensus call on the mailing list.
<> Consensus calls: There were indeed quite a few hums taken in
the GEOPRIV room in Prague. In fact, the manner in which the
meeting was run with regard to hums was not typical for this group
- hums were used liberally to hone in on areas where there was,
and was not, consensus. That much said, not all of the hums were
consensus calls on working group issues; quite a few hums were
also taken on how we should proceed, for example (taken from the
minutes):
- HUM : Are you informed enough to make this choice
- HUM: Is it important to solve that today
- HUM: Will the group accept a plurality for the decision?
This last hum in particular represented an unusual step, as the
GEOPRIV chairs note. It was a step recommended by the author of
RFC3929 (a document on "alternative decision making processes for
consensus-blocked decisions") when we asked him how we might
proceed. We resorted to this step because the room felt (based on
a previous hum) that it was important to walk away from the
meeting with a resolution.
I am the author of RFC 3929, and I did say that this was one way
forward. This
is not, however, exactly what RFC 3929 says. That sets out
preconditions
before alternative methods can be used:
3.1. There is a clear decision to be reached
3.2. Proposals are available in Draft form
3.3. The working group has discussed the issue without reaching
resolution
3.4. There is an explicit working group last call to use an alternate
method
The hums in the room were not after an explicit working group last
call to use
an alternate method; they were after a hum in the room to use
plurality
rather consensus in order to make forward progress. I believe that
the
method used is within the spirit of 3929; more importantly, though,
I think
they are well within what a working group can use to drive consensus.
All consensus requires compromise. The call in the room could be
rephrased
as: "Are you willing to compromise by adopting the other solution if
it is the majority preference?" I think that was the spirit in
which it
was being asked, and I hope we can retain that spirit of compromise as
we ask for confirmation on the list.
To one particular point:
Cullen Jennings both called the consensus
and cast the last and tie-breaking vote in the room.
We feel it is important to clarify that Cullen Jennings did not
call the consensus in the room. Rather, both Cullen and Ted Hardie
were independently counting the tallies for the plurality in the
room (two counters were used for redundancy, with the side effect
that presumably we eliminated any chance of partiality); it was in
fact Jon Peterson as chair who called the consensus, on the basis
of those reported tallies. Furthermore, although Cullen Jennings
did cast a vote when the count in the room was completed and
discovered to result in a tie, this was not the tie-breaking vote
for the purposes of determining consensus.
I note that I did not vote in any of the questions where I was
tallying the answers. In
the case where a tie was produced in the room I did say "Oh sh*t"
loudly enough
to elicit some nearby laughter, and it was after that that Cullen
raised his hand.
Having seen his face, I can thoroughly believe that it was
frustration at the level
of deadlock, and I was happy that counting the jabber room
participants' positions
resolved the question such that we could remove his vote from the
tally.
In fact, votes from the Jabber room determined the plurality, and
the resulting tally did not favor the option for which Cullen had
voted. To the charge that
one of the hums was called on a question not described
in an existing Internet-Draft.
That can be said of all of the process listed hums above. We
aren't aware that process constrains us to make hums solely
related to questions within existing Internet-Drafts.
I personally, don't think they do. But the number of hums, the
fact that we were
working from audible (rather than written) questions, and the pace
of the meeting
all contribute to the issue of whether everyone understood the full
impact
of all the questions being asked (especially those folks
contributing remotely,
since this is always a difficult task). This doesn't mean anything
was done with
ill-intent; it just highlights the need to follow up with well-
worded consensus calls
on the mailing list.
As I said before, I am personally happy with the outcome of the
calls, as they
move us forward; I would have been equally happy, in many cases,
with the
other choices, as they would do the same. But I was at the meeting
and could
get a sense of the room. If the combination of unusual features
related to
the meeting has raised questions in the community, then I believe
the chairs
are right to respond to them and to ensure that we all recognize to be
careful in our followup. That's not about blame, or an
allegation. I's a
practical statement of what it will take to keep all of the
participants
committed to finishing the work.
I hope the chairs and ADs can come to a rapid and amicable
agreement on
that, and that we can all move forward quickly.
regards,
Ted
Cullen Jennings
Jon Peterson
RAI Area Directors
On Apr 17, 2007, at 8:06 PM, Randall Gellens wrote:
All,
We, the co-chairs of the GEOPRIV working group, have received
private
messages of concern regarding the GEOPRIV meeting held at IETF 68
and
the outcome of that meeting. Upon initial investigation, we believe
there were irregularities with the scheduling and agenda of the
meeting that rise above the normal course of business within the
IETF. It is our opinion that at this time, it is best to bring
notice of these irregularities to the working group in the interest
of transparency and for the integrity of the IETF.
AGENDA CHANGE
The IETF process allows for agenda changes during meetings. At the
outset of the meeting, the agenda was changed substantially from the
published agenda. This change included removing the discussion of
location signing and integrity and replacing it with an L7-LCP
protocol consensus call. However, evidence has arisen that the
the Area Directors, Cullen Jennings and Jon Peterson, met
privately with
some participants of the GEOPRIV working group to inform them
of this agenda change. Cullen Jennings is the Area Advisor to
GEOPRIV.
If such meetings did occur, we believe them to be improper and to
have potentially harmed the integrity and transparency of GEOPRIV
and
the IETF. It is not proper for officiates of a working group to
plan
working group agenda changes and privately inform only select group
participants. Doing so disadvantages participants of the working
group who have not been advised of this change. This is especially
true for this particular meeting as the agenda change
precipitated 15
hums during the meeting.
SCHEDULE CHANGE
As noted ahead of time, two of the three co-chairs, Andy and
Allison,
were unable to attend IETF 68. The working group co-chairs planned
for this in advance by finding a substitute acting chair, Henning
Schulzrinne, to aid the one co-chair, Randy, who was able to
attend. This change was publicly announced on the mailing list
before IETF 68. However, the RAI Area Directors announced a last
minute (Sunday) schedule change which created an unresolvable
conflict
for Randy. The Area Directors executed this schedule change over
the
objections of the GEOPRIV co-chairs and in full knowledge of the
conflict it created. Additionally, the reason given was so that a
working group co-chair for another working group could attend his
meeting.
As a result of the schedule change, the meeting was co-chaired by
Jon
Peterson, the other RAI Area Director. Consequent to the agenda
change regarding L7-LCP, Henning recused himself during the latter
half the meeting, leaving Jon Peterson to solely run the meeting.
During the meeting, a few participants expressed concerns regarding
the agenda and schedule changes. These concerns were dismissed
by Jon.
CONSENSUS CALLS
As noted above, the meeting resulted in an unusually high (15)
number
of consensus calls for GEOPRIV. This includes the unusual
decision to
use an alternate consensus method of a plurality vote to choose
between
two protocol proposals. As noted in the raw minutes and the
audio recording of the meeting, for the call that used the
plurality voting method, Cullen Jennings both called the consensus
and cast the last and tie-breaking vote in the room. It should also
be noted that one of the hums was called on a question not described
in an existing Internet-Draft.
The schedule change, the agenda change made known to a few select
participants in advance, and the unusual sense-of-the-room hums,
together
create at least the appearance that there may have been an
attempt to
manipulate the IETF process to hold and predetermine the outcome of
consensus calls. Even the appearance of such manipulation,
regardless of
how well-intentioned the actions may have been, threatens the
integrity
and openness of the IETF.
The IETF relies on not just open, fare processes, but also
transparency that good procedures are followed. The irregularities
are now on the record of the group, hopefully never to be repeated.
In order to follow IETF process, all resolutions put forward during
a working group meeting must be ratified on the working group's
mailing list. The chairs will shortly be sending messages to
formally
initiate consensus calls on the sense-of-the-room hums that were
taken
in Prague. Since so many hums were put forth during the IETF 68
meeting, we plan to send multiple messages to the working group
mailing list seeking ratification of the proposals.
Because of what happened in Prague, the chairs want to make very
sure that the subsequent consensus calls are very open and
non-coercive. We ask all working group participants to please pay
close attention to these calls and respond appropriately.
The first of these messages will be sent shortly.
Sincerely,
The geopriv co-chairs:
- Andy
- Allison
- Randy
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