Andrew, Another personal opinion... --On Monday, March 11, 2019 09:48 -0400 Andrew Sullivan <ajs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> if any staff, as an individual, has any restriction to >> participate in the IETF, this is not clearly in favor of the >> openness and transparency that we look for at IETF. > > This may be where we disagree. If one accepts employment at > the Internet Society, in my opinion one implicity accepts > others' interpretations of one's actions. The goal with our > new explicit policy is to draw clear lines everyone in the > world could understand. We Internet Society employees are not > "just individuals", no matter what anyone might say. So we > have a special requirement with respect to standards. If we > don't want this. we should find employment elsewhere. I agree with the above and think that at least most of the announced policy is reasonable and appropriate and that the only way to identify and fix anything that turns out to be is to do what I hope you, ISOC, and the rest of us always do: watch, see how things evolve, and then adjust as necessary. However, I just want to be sure that you, and everyone else, are aware of one of the implications of the above. One could rewrite the paragraph above to read: If one accepts employment at BigCompany, one implicitly accepts others' interpretations of one's actions. The goal with BigCompany's explicit policy is to draw clear lines everyone in the world could understand. Especially because BigCompany makes large financial contributions to the IETF (and possibly other standards bodies) and is regularly solicited for additional contributions and meeting sponsorships, no employee of BigCompany is "just an individual", no matter what anyone might say. So employees of BigCompany have special responsibilities with respect to standards and participation in the IETF. If people don't want those responsibilities, and the requirements and restrictions that go with them, they should find employment elsewhere. Such as statement, unilaterally imposed by BigCompany on its employees, would probably be reasonable and an accurate description of potential external inferences, but would undermine the IETF's claim that people participate only as individuals, independent of their other affiliations. As you know from other conversations we have had in our individual capacities, I believe that changes in the world in which the IETF operates as well as a series of IETF decisions and actions have turned that claim into a convenient and sometimes dangerous fiction but, as long as we continue to make it, we need to understand that organizational policies like the above are in tension with it. Now I agree that the Internet Society's role is special and different from that of an arbitrary BigCompany even if, for example, that company is also supplying and sponsoring (in terms of salaries and/or expenses) a significant fraction of the IETF's (or IETF LLC's) leadership and decision makers. However, I don't think we should pretend that there is a bright-line boundary between them or between your comment and my hypothetical company statement. In particular, if that company responded to a solicitation by saying "The IETF LLC and any related foundations have asked us for a significant contribution. We think the IETF is important and we will supply it but to avoid any doubt that we are trying to buy undue influence, we will prohibit any of our employees from serving on the IAB or member of any standing IAB Program, IESG or as a WG Chair, LLC Board, or as Trustees of the IETF Trust", the IETF would be in big trouble, especially if one company's making that move caused other companies to seriously consider it. Getting from the Internet Society relationship and policy to something like that would take a giant step, perhaps several of them, but such steps are not unheard of. best, john
