I do understand.
The problem is that writing the actual text seems insupportable.
Even if we had written text, I imagine that we could still have had an
argument this year about whether Futurewei and Huawei are or are not the
same. (We got lucky and dodged that question.)
For consultants, there are really two separate issues. One is the
question of whether all major clients ought to be disclosed in a
conflict of interest sense. The other is when that client becomes
effectively the Primary affiliation (for example, a consultant with only
one client has usually been informally considered to be primarily
affiliated with that client.) Trying to write a rule (75%? 50%? 10%?)
is almost meaningless.
Note that we also do not define it for other purposes where we expect
affiliation disclosure. (And you both have handled those cases easily.)
To restate. I do understand that the vagueness creates some issues in
the nomcom selection process. My personal take is that while more words
could narrow that somewhat, we can't resolve it. And that even
narrowing it would take a lot of work. If we want to actually get a new
document out that gets community resolution on some of the issues, we
need to be careful.
Yours,
Joel
On 7/9/19 12:21 PM, Adrian Farrel wrote:
And yet...
As a consultant, my primary affiliation is my consulting company. Yet there seems to be a feeling that I should disclose (at least to the NomCom chair) a list of my company's major customers, where "major" means more than x% of the company's income stream.
I think that I agree with Stewart that the ambiguity in the definition makes for interpretation issues such that if my company had major dealings with Foo Corp and the selection process identified me and two employees of Foo Corp it would not be clear whether we should all serve or not.
(I have a personal opinion about this, but that is not the point. The point is that there is no obvious guidance in the RFC.)
Best,
Adrian
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-----Original Message-----
From: ietf <ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Joel Halpern
Sent: 09 July 2019 17:03
To: Stewart Bryant <stewart.bryant@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: IETF <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Future adjustment of nomcom company limits (Was: Re: Nomcom 2019-2020: Result of random selection process)
The exclusion of a definition for "Primary Affiliation" was deliberate.
And as far as I can tell it is necessary. I do not know any definition
that will crisply catch all the cases. I am sure we could spend a long
time wordsmithing something that still did not work.
Yours,
Joel
On 7/9/19 11:53 AM, Stewart Bryant wrote:
As fas as I can see RFC7437 does not define "Primary Affiliation" which
seems an unfortunate omission.
In this complex globalized industry, the absence of such a definition,
can make inclusion or exclusion from the final list arbitrary.
- Stewart
