Sorry to prolong this correspondence but I have a couple of comments below on Mike's
comments.
As background, here is what I consider to be a key extract from RFC 4071:
"3.3. Relationship of the IAOC to Existing IETF Leadership
The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the
performance of the IASA. However, the nature of the IAOC's work
involves treating the IESG and IAB as major internal customers of the
administrative support services. The IAOC and the IAD should not
consider their work successful unless the IESG and IAB are also
satisfied with the administrative support that the IETF is receiving."
I suspect that this is why giving the IESG and IAB each an ex officio
seat and the power to appoint one member seemed natural in 2004/2005.
On 07/02/2016 09:47, Michael StJohns wrote:
> See below
>
> On 2/6/2016 2:06 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> Mike,
>>
>> The IAB has oversight responsibility for the RFC Editor. The IAOC oversees
>> the IAD, who manages contracts for the community, including the RFC editing
>> contracts. I therefore believe that having a voting IAB member among the voting
>> members of the IAOC is appropriate. Otherwise the IAB doesn't have a clear
>> "chain of command" (or, alternatively, "the buck stops here") linkage to
>> that aspect of the RFC Editor.
>>
>> A similar argument shows why the IAB should be directly linked to the
>> IETF Trust, which holds the rights in RFCs and may come to hold the rights in
>> IANA data.
>>
>> Neither argument shows that the person needs to be the IAB Chair, IMHO.
>>
>> I regard this as quite disjoint from how the ordinary members of the IAOC
>> are appointed. Splitting that job between the IESG, the IAB and the Nomcom
>> was a fairly arbitrary choice, but I think the Nomcom has a big enough
>> job already.
>>
>> Brian
>>
>>
>
> Hi Brian -
>
> IMO, I think you've made a good argument for retaining at least one IAB member on the IAOC, an incomplete argument for why that
> member need not be the IAB chair and a very poor argument as to why the IAB should continue to appoint a second person.
>
> WRT the incomplete argument I'd ask the current (and past members) of the IAOC to comment on the following questions (to
> paraphrase Leslie's note quite a bit):
>
> Are there specific benefits to the IAOC to having the IAB chair continue as a member of the IAOC that would not be met if
> he/she were replaced by another member of the IAB?
> Are there specific issues the IAOC might encounter if the IAB chair were not a member of the IAOC and how could those issues
> be mitigated?
> [If you were still on the IAOC,] Would you object to the change and for what reasons?
>
> So far I *think* I haven't seen anyone currently on the IAOC comment on the above.
>
> For the poor argument related to why the IAB should continue to appoint a second person - seriously?? "The Nomcom has a big
> enough job already". I might find this a reasonable argument if (and pretty much only if) the Nomcom weren't already required
> to (advertise for and interview and ) appoint an IAOC member every term. AFAICT, having the Nomcom change that to two (or even
> three) per year and removing the need for the other two (or three - not quite sure about ISOC) bodies to advertise, interview,
> and select would reduce the workload on the IAB, IESG and maybe ISOC without actually increasing the workload of the Nomcom much
> if at all. [This is based on the observation that the same people will probably apply to the IAB, IESG and Nomcom solicitations
> and if all three bodies are doing their jobs in a complete manner similar to what the Nomcom should be doing, that seems like a
> lot of redundancy in the process.]
That's a valid point. In fact, iirc, it quickly proved necessary to have some
private communication, made tricky by the confidentiality of the Nomcom process,
to avoid oversights in the IAOC selection process. I'm not against opening
up that discussion, but we'd need to hear what several past Nomcom Chairs think
about it. It is of course orthogonal to the draft under discussion.
Brian