Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 26/12/2014 08:25, IETF Chair wrote: > ... >> III. MERGING OF UPPER LAYER PROTOCOL AREAS >> >> ... the IESG is proposing to merge the APP, RAI, and TSV areas into one >> combined Network Applications (NAPP) area. From March 2015-March 2016, >> this combined area would be overseen by the five remaining ADs from >> APP, RAI, and TSV, with some redistribution of WG shepherding >> responsibilities among them to balance workloads. DISPATCH, TSVWG, >> and APPSAWG would continue to function much as they currently do. > > I've been trying to think of a nice way to say this, but there isn't one. I couldn't think of a nice-way, either... :^( > I think this is a terrible idea. It would create a very unwieldy structure, > effectively an IESG within the IESG. +1 > It would only take about a week for the 5 ADs concerned to decide that > they need weekly coordination meetings; after a month they'd discover > the need for a well-defined chair for those meetings. Or... They wouldn't discover this need. :^( > Depending on the individuals, the result might be a power bloc within the > IESG. (Actually, I don't worry about that...) > Given that there might also be a mini-power bloc formed by 3 Routing ADs, > the dynamics of the IESG would be very different and chairing it could > become rather challenging. <narrative-scribe-hat = On> There is in fact a lot of cooperation between the two ADs in an area. Technically, I suppose this could lead to a "power-block" where one of them places a DISCUSS and the other supports it -- but that simply isn't happening. This kind of cooperation has been improving quite a bit over the last five years: whenever one of the ADs in an area is absent from a telechat, the other knows enough to advise how to proceed on the documents in question. I can't imagine how this will get easier with three ADs to an area. (Nonetheless, I support the IESG choosing to experiment with three RTG ADs for one year.) But going from two to five in the yet-unnamed APPS area worries me. <narrative-scribe-hat = Off> > I fully appreciate the RAI/Apps issue. There's clear overlap and a lot has > changed since RAI was created. I agree you have to do something there. I could support that also as an experiment. I'm less sure it'll work well; but so long as it's an experiment we can back out of, I'm OK. > However, the merge with Transport is technically strange. Agreed, there > are four or five WGs in Transport that could equally well be in Apps, and > there are some in RAI that could equally well be in Transport. Those are things the IESG should just-do. > But beyond that, I just don't see the synergy. <narrative-scribe-hat = On> I well remember IESG discussion over the problem of finding TSV ADs. IMHO, we've made progress, and no longer give the NOMCOM impossible job descriptions. I worry that merging TSV into APPS may be an attempt to solve a problem which is no longer there. I worry even more that this attempt at merging will generate another impossible job-description for a larger area. <narrative-scribe-hat = Off> > (Where we need synergy, we know how to create it, e.g. the DART WG.) > Wouldn't it be better to rebalance by moving a few groups from RAI to > Transport, and the solve the RAI/Apps problem on its own? +1 -- John Leslie <john@xxxxxxx>