--On Monday, September 19, 2011 14:26 -0500 Spencer Dawkins
<spencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Anything? I believe you do not believe that statement, but I
>> think it accurately summarizes the focus of this thread, so
>> far.
>...
> I am carefully reading the notes that were posted after I
> posted. I noticed that John Klensin says "not JUST an offload
> proposal" - and I get that - and I hadn't fully grokked the
> "fiduciary responsibility" point Marshall made. So, yes, I
> overspoke.
>
> Like I said - I'm fine being in the rough on this proposal,
> but I would like us to think about "if not this, what gets
> offloaded?"
I'm not willing to try to defend "anything". But I'd suggest
two other observations as we are thinking about tradeoffs:
(1) Is the larger perspective on strategic issues associated
with the IETF and IAB Chairs (I'm not prepared to speak to the
ISOC situation, which I think may be a little different)
inherent in either the people who are selected for those jobs or
in the fact that they hold those jobs? (Remember that, while
there are extensive religious and magical traditions associated
with specific powers passing to a new King along with the crown
or other symbols of office, we've never made claims like that
around the IETF, at least yet.) If the answer is, as I believe
it is, really "no, not inherent, those people acquire that
perspective as part of doing their jobs", then aren't we better
off trying to get others to acquire the same level of
perspective? After all, it would provide some protection
against truck fade (or even vacations) of the Chairs and some
disruption-reducing training for possible succession, so that is
part of the tradeoff too.
FWIW, in my tenures on the IESG and IAB, there were often folks
who had a lot less long-term perspective on those bodies, the
IETF, and the Internet than the Chairs and some who had as much
or more. Unless we are willing to make the magical assumption,
I don't think "Chair has knowledge and perspective, no one else
is likely to" is really justified as a presumption, even though
it could be a reasonable consideration when looking at tradeoffs.
(2) As a different tradeoff to think about, suppose we answer
Spencer's question with "nothing gets offloaded" because, for
every single responsibility we have placed on the Chairs (or
they, in their reasonable judgment of the best interests of the
community, have taken on themselves) someone can make a
plausible argument about why one Chair or the other is the
best-qualified to do it. Now suppose the IAB looks around for
its next Chair and says "who has the resources to do this" and
gets dead silence? Or the Nomcom looks around for IETF Chair
candidates, asks for volunteers, and gets no one who has the
resources and is even plausibly acceptable (to make that
exercise particularly lurid, assume that all of the volunteers
are members of your favorite pool of trolls and/or residents of
some other planet)? My impression is that we've come pretty
close to one or both of those scenarios, with a few available
choices but not many. But, if we were to actually get there
what happens? I don't know the answer other than being pretty
sure that such problems are better prevented than solved once
the crisis has occurred.
Again, I see both as tradeoffs, not absolutes, and I won't say
"do anything". But I see those scenarios as sufficiently scary
and sufficiently plausible that it wouldn't take much to get me
to "almost anything".
john
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