On one particular point (I'm reading the rest of the thread, and thinking, but wanted to speak up about this)
On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:54 AM, John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
--On Sunday, February 18, 2018 22:51 -0800 joel jaeggli
<joelja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 2/17/18 05:16, John C Klensin wrote:
>...
Joel,>> Scott,
>>
>> A question about the above, with the hope that it will never
>> become important. I believe that traditionally any and all
>> ADs in a particular area are jointly responsible for every WG
>> in that area, i.e., that splitting WGs in a given area among
>> ADs is an administrative convenience, not a change of
>> responsibility in the sense above. Is that still the case
>> or is the above language a back door effectively creating
>> mini-areas with one AD each? And, if the latter, should
>> assignments of WGs to ADs be something that is a bit more
>> transparent than it has been, e.g., something that should be
>> part of the review at WG charter time, subject to review and
>> appeal when changes are made to responsibility for existing
>> WGs (even if the changes are due to AD turnover), and even
>> something that should be explicitly visible to the Nomcom?
>
> The above sentence is a non-sequitor. Working groups are
> assigned at chartering through. sponsorship it's not clear how
> you'd be more transparent then simply asking an AD to sponsor
> your BOF / Charter.
>
> RFC 2418
>
> A working group may be established
> at the initiative of an Area Director or it may be
> initiated by an individual or group of individuals. Anyone
> interested in creating an IETF working group MUST obtain
> the advice and consent of the IETF Area Director(s) in
> whose area the working group would fall and MUST proceed
> through the formal steps detailed in this section.
At the time 2418 was written, areas with more than one AD
existed, but were not the norm, and, IIR, we had never had one
with three ADs. Also, while WGs that had existed for years
existed (a few of those continue to exist near 20 years later),
they are now much more common, making multiple responsible ADs
over the lifespan of a WG almost inevitable. If there is one
one AD in an area, the Nomcoom at least has the opportunity to
consider effects on continuing WGs when deciding how to fill an
open slot. In multiple-AD areas, when ADs turn over, WGs are
typically reshuffled among the new and returning ADs. At least
in many cases, those decisions occur without community
visibility and without any explicit discussion with the affected
WGs or even their chairs.
Also at that time, we tended to get a little anxious when the
same company (or its near-affiliates) was employing or
supporting multiple members of the IESG and/or IAB. By my rough
count, today we have three organizations with two IESG or IAB
members each and one with four. There was also a strong
cultural assumption in the IESG that having an AD responsible
for a WG whose chair was employed or supported by the same
company was a seriously bad idea. I gather that assumption has
been relaxed as well, especially with WGs with co-chairs.
None of these changes are inherently bad and I'm certainly not
accusing anyone of bad intentions, much less bad actions.
However, were we revising 2418 (or, around this topic, 2026 and
its successors) today I believe there are a number of issues
that we would want to address that simply were not judged as
important enough in 1998 (or in 1994 when RFC 1603 was
published).
At least from my point of view, part of the problem is that
while the IETF has been paying very careful attention to
intellectual property issues, there has been too little concern
about that appearance of conflicts of interest, concentration of
decision-making in particular industry actors, and antitrust and
competitiveness issues.
On "antitrust and competitiveness issues", I don't attend IEEE 802 meetings regularly, but I can't remember attending one that didn't start out with a slide showing an antitrust equivalent of the IETF Note Well that covers IPR.
I wouldn't call putting up one slide "solving a problem", but I would think that IEEE 802 is better positioned to say "but we do take a stand against anti-competitive actions" if anyone complains, than the IETF is.
For what that's worth.
We now return you to the rest of this excellent discussion.
Spencer, speaking only for myself
Or answer to those concerns has often
been that everyone participates as an individual so there is no
problem but, especially in situations in which "follow the
money" is an important maxim, that claim would not survive a
laugh test and "I recused myself by not voting on that matter"
(even though I might still participate in informal discussions
and give advice about it) wouldn't last much longer.
These may be issues that the IETF will continue to ignore. If
we extrapolate from the past, ignoring them has been a good
strategy because there have been no serious ill effects of doing
so. However, neither the WG-AD relationship nor the suggestion
that Nomcoms should be able to pay attention to how particular
AD candidates have handled or might handle potential conflicts
of interest strikes me as anything near a non-sequitor.
john
