On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 7:35 PM Ted Lemon <mellon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> A little less catastrophization might make this conversation more fun! :)
>
> Seriously, each of the questions you're asking implies a fairly obvious answer. For example, fundraising: this is straightforward: always have enough money to pay all the ADs for the next year or two. Figure out how to raise that money. If it's not available, then this option isn't open to us: end of story. Once that endowment exists, keep funding it. If the funding dries up, oh well, we tried. The only way to find out if this is possible is to try it; the only reason to try it is that we think it's worth trying. I think this conversation is about whether we think it's worth trying (the running consensus appears to be "no," but we haven't heard much from people who would have tried for IESG if this option were available).
Something else to keep in mind is that having the *option* for paid
ADs changes the tone of the role, and may make some people unable (or
unwilling) to serve.
My management is willing to let me serve as an AD because is is a
volunteer position (and because I made it clear that I really wanted
to serve) - if there was the option for the IETF to "hire" people for
the role, it is entirely possible that they would not have let me do
so ("Eh, we pay Warren lots of money - if the IETF can hire their own
people let them do that, and we'll put Warren to work on "real work"
instead"). Also, if I were being paid by the IETF / ISOC / Endowment /
Cake Bake Fund I would (personally) feel different about the role --
currently I serve because I really like the IETF and want to feel like
I'm giving back. If I were being paid (or if others were being paid) I
would feel very differently about the organization and it would go
from a labor of love to a job. In addition, instead of balloting what
I believe, I would feel an implicit obligation to get documents out
the door fast (measurable) versus as good as they can be
(unmeasurable).
Just some thoughts,
W
>
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 3:29 PM, Theodore Y. Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 08:59:32PM -0400, Ted Lemon wrote:
>> > Ted, it sounds like you're suggesting that right now there's no bias, and
>> > if this change were made, it would create bias. The reality is that if we
>> > did exactly the change you suggest, it would indeed shift the bias away
>> > from people who can get corporate sponsorship to those who can afford to
>> > take bigger risks/work for less money. Of course, that's not the only way
>> > to do it—we could also make it available as an option, while allowing the
>> > old form of sponsorship as well. What's the old quote, "the law, in its
>> > infinite grandeur, forbids the rich and poor alike from sleeping under
>> > bridges..."
>>
>> I wasn't referring to the bias that the people might hold, but the
>> bias of the sort of people that would stand for selection by Nomcom if
>> it required them to resign from their present job and be paid
>> non-profit wages by a SDO.
>>
>> If you are saying that it would be an option (so either their current
>> employer could choose to keep them on their payroll, and allow them to
>> continue to accrue equity compesantion), *OR* the IETF would somehow
>> find the salary for the AD, somehow, then that would avoid decreasin
>> the slate of people willing to stand for selection by Nomcom --- but
>> that transfers the burden to the organization that needs to be able to
>> find the salary for the AD if it turns out to be necessary. It's hard
>> to raise money when it's not clear whether or not it's needed.
>> Especially if it turns out if the answer is trying to hold out a tin
>> cup and beg for donations (sorry, sponsorships).
>>
>> Or what other alternative did you have in mind for finding the $$$ to
>> pay for a full-time AD's salary? I hope you're not proposing that the
>> IETF start charging hundreds or thousands of dollars for
>> fourth-generation xerox copies, ala what was needed to get a hold of a
>> (legal) copy of the ASN.1 spec from ANSI....
>>
>> - Ted
>>
>>
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 8:12 PM, Theodore Y. Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >
>> > > On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 06:23:40PM -0400, Ted Lemon wrote:
>> > > > ADs don’t choose their terms: nomcom does.
>> > >
>> > > So this biases the people available to nomcom to those people who are
>> > > either (a) consultants, or (b) willing to resign from their well-paid
>> > > corporate job to take a job with a non-profit SDO.
>> > >
>> > > I don't believe this will result increasing the quality of the slate
>> > > of candidates available to Nomcom compared to what we have now. Which
>> > > was the whole point of this proposal, was it not?
>> > >
>> > > - Ted
>> > >
>
>
--
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
---maf
