On 10/10/14 2:18 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
--On Thursday, October 09, 2014 20:59 -0400 Michael StJohns
<mstjohns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Having a generalist is uncharted waters.
Not really. The IETF chair is by definition something of a
generalist and usually has work in more than one area during their
participation.
Not a good parallel. The WG management responsibilities of the IETF
chair are extremely small. Jari has his first WG in his tenure as chair,
and AFAICT Russ didn't have any. And also AFAICT the IETF chair does not
manage technical work from WGs.
Sure, we could say to the NomCom, "Don't fill the APP slot with another
APP person; find a generalist who could be cross-area." But I think that
would be much more disruptive to the current operation of the IESG,
having to figure out how to re-organize our current work to accommodate
this new generalist, and would slow our ability to accomplish the
re-organization we really need to be doing.
If you don't know what the re-org will
result in, how is deciding that the APPs area AD going away is the
correct decision?
Tactics vs. strategy. We know that we want to redistribute load
throughout the areas. We know that there is currently a small load for
the APP area, as constituted, and we believe that the current single APP
AD can handle the load easily. We're not sure what (if any) skillset
will be most useful for the current APP slot once we go through
re-organizing thing, but we're pretty convinced it's not going to be the
skillset that we generally recruit for the APP area.
By appointing someone to the slot now, we're making the re-org harder.
See more below:
I'd say 0) figure out if APPs is really closing then 1)
figure out which groups need to go where, then 2) drop an AD.
Again, nothing is insoluble, but this feels rushed and
possibly not well thought through for implications and
unintended consequences.
Having just disagreed about principles, I think the above is
probably the right conclusion. We really do not need to argue
about whether one-year appointments are possible because, if the
IESG decides to eliminate an area or AD slot and the relevant
ADs are so attached to the jobs that one or more is willing to
resign for the good of the community and to free herself from a
non-existent position, I suggest that we have far greater
problems than the number of years for which a Nomcom can make an
appointment.
Assuming you meant "not willing", I think you're being a bit
unrealistic, or at least not being nuanced enough, about this. For
better or worse, the way we select folks for the IESG now, we ask for a
serious two year commitment, one that normally involves talking to
employers and re-arranging life for quite some period of time. Even if
*theoretically* a given AD would be willing to resign for the good of
the community, there are going to be cultural and social pressures on
the IESG not to "re-organize one of their own out of a job". I'd like to
think we weren't susceptible to such influences, but I think it's there
in the background. Furthermore, it's not really fair to ask someone to
make a commitment in such a nebulous state. Taking this opportunity
(when you have an incumbent AD stepping down anyway from an area that
currently has a light(er) work load and is clearly going to be part of
the re-organization) to not fill the position until the re-org is done
makes the most sense to me.
Trying to re-org and drop an AD later if we decide we need to is not a
good plan forward. In my judgment, it simply won't work.
pr
--
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478