As the IAB noted in its last call for volunteers to serve on the RSOC, RFC 6635 does not mandate a specific process or cadence for IAB appointments to the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC). During the last refresh, the IAB chose to run its standard process for other programs, which involves calling for volunteers and requesting sitting members to put their names forward again if they were still interested in serving. At the time of that call, the RSOC members appointed by the IAB were: Adam Roach, Joel Halpern, Bob Hinden, Nevil Brownlee, Sarah Banks, and Tony Hansen. After the call for volunteers, the IAB solicited feedback on the candidates and then conducted interviews. On the basis of that process, the IAB then approved a new membership roster of Adam Roach, Peter St. Andre, Sarah Banks, and Tony Hansen. While the total number of appointed members went down, three of the four were previous members with service dating back 2-5 years each. In part because of departures from the IAB, the two IAB members changed, with Christian Huitema replacing Martin Thomson in September 2018 and Mark Nottingham taking over from Robert Sparks in March 2019.
While the IAB believes that the process used last time was appropriate under the terms of RFC 6635, we understand from community discussion that there are concerns that this process might in future result in an RSOC membership that lacks the continuity required under section 3.1 of RFC 6635. In order to address this concern, we propose to implement an IAB policy that will give staggered three-year terms to the RSOC members and thus ensure that no more than one third of the membership will be up for renewal at any one time. This is similar to the process used for appointments to the ISOC board and, like the ISOC board process, would allow for members to stand again. Because the existing RSOC was not seated with that expectation, the IAB would both need to grow the total number of appointees to at least six and work out how the existing members would track to the different years. If the community agrees to this proposal, we would consult with the RSOC on those details.
Because RFC 6635 is silent on this part of the process, we believe we can consider such a procedure change without it requiring a change in the document. Because the IASA2 process has been updating the references to the IAOC to reference the IETF LLC, there is also a draft of RFC6635bis. An alternative would be to broaden its scope to include this change.
The IAB solicits feedback on this procedural change and the best approach to achieving it if it is acceptable to the community, either by replying to this message or to iab@xxxxxxx.
The IAB does not mean by making this proposal to rule out other changes to the RSOC or the RFC Editor model. It does seem, however, to be an incremental update that can be done now to make improvements in the existing procedures while larger issues are discussed.
Regards,
Ted Hardie
for the IAB
