Re: RSOC name

[Michael StJohns <mstjohns@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm currently TL;dr most of Andrew's message because I think I've already made the points I need to make and I don't think anything he's said in those sections needs me to stir anything in.  But I will list some of  my own relevant "experiences" lest anyone think I'm not familiar with the history:

100 IETF meetings including meeting 1

Nomcom chair

twice IAB member

one of the original program chairs for the IETF 87 time frame

contract manager for the NIC contract (funding RFC publication, IANA services)  85-89

contract manager for the ISI contract (funding Jon, Bob and Joyce) 92-96

Defense Data Network Program contract oversight MITRE (original IETF secretariat services).

On 7/29/2019 11:04 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

Elsewhere, Mike StJohns has claimed, "This is a senior person who
really should be co-equal with the IAB and IESG."  I do not find the
documented tradition that suggests this is true.  On the contrary, I
can find documents stretching back to at least 1992 (where I stopped
digging) suggesting that the RSE is in fact subordinate to the IAB.

It's too bad you didn't check out the '92 IAB charter then:

RFC 1358, Section 8:

Section 8.

   The chair of the IAB, with the approval of at least two-thirds of the
   IAB membership, shall have the authority to appoint an Editor for the
   Request for Comments (RFC) publication series (the "RFC Editor"), who
   shall be responsible for the editorial management and publication of
   the RFC series.  If the RFC Editor is not a member of the IAB, he or
   she shall serve ex officio as a member of the IAB unless and until
   made a regular member of the IAB.  The RFC Editor may be removed at
   any time by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members of the
   IAB.

Basically, the IAB has existed in roughly three forms: 

• A group of heads of US DOD ARPA research task forces - approximately from inception to 1992 both self-selected and contract driven.
  
• A technical committee of the ISOC - from 92-94 (RFC1358) and
  
• the current structure from approximately 94 on.  
  

The RFC editor has existed in roughly 7 forms (I wasn't around in the Steve/Jon transition time so that part is anecdotal - inception was ~69):

• Inception - Steve Crocker - primarily as an adhoc record keeping system for the ARPANet related research.
• The early years - Jon Postel - primarily as a more formal record keeping system including some outsider protocol contributions.
• The early IETF years - Jon Postel - on a handshake between him and Phill Gross to act as the publication stream for the IETF standards and documents (this is also the inception point for the ID series), roughly around the IETF meeting at NCAR.
• The post-Jon/pre RFC Series model - from Jon's death in '98 to Bob and Joyce's retirement
• The interregnum - Glenn's term mainly looking at how do we adopt Jon/Bob/Joyce's precious child and do it justice
  
• The regency - Olaf's term while we're looking for a professional
• The modern era - A professional RSE.

Jon (and Bob for that matter) were members of the first incarnation of the IAB as DOD/NSF contractors.  Jon, as RFC editor remained on the IAB during the technical committee period, and was only taken off due to the Kobe reorganizations that caused the current structure to come into being (but remained as liaison for the rest of his service AFAICT - although I don't remember him saying much during my first IAB term).  The DOD/NSF/DOE and NASA continued to provide funding to the RFC editor (and to the IETF for that matter) until at least 1997 or so, and I believe were responsible for funding at least part of Bob and Joyce's time through their tenure.   At no time during Jon or Bob or Joyce's tenure would anyone have had the nerve to suggest that the RFC editor was subordinate to the IAB and in fact, it wasn't until the change in how we dealt with the RFC editor (RFC model 1, 2009), that there was anything more than these paragraphs in the IAB charter: (RFC 2850):

 (d) RFC Series and IANA

   The RFC Editor executes editorial management and publication of the
   IETF "Request for Comment" (RFC) document series, which is the
   permanent document repository of the IETF.  The RFC series
   constitutes the archival publication channel for Internet Standards
   and for other contributions by the Internet research and engineering
   community. RFCs are available free of charge to anyone via the
   Internet. The IAB must approve the appointment of an organization to
   act as RFC Editor and the general policy followed by the RFC Editor.

   The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) administers various
   protocol parameters used by IETF protocols, delegating this
   administration as appropriate. The IAB must approve the appointment
   of an organization to act as IANA on behalf of the IETF. The IANA
   takes technical direction on IETF protocols from the IESG.

I listed both of these, because of the juxtaposition of the IANA and RFC Editor.  While the charter says that the IAB appointed the RFC editor that was an error. In fact it was more correct to say that the IAB appointed an organization/individual to act as the publication stream for IETF standards documents (similar to the language related to the IANA).  The RFC series at the time of both this (RFC2850) document and previous IAB charter documents was a contract work product of the ISI paid for in whole or in part by the US Government and had existed in that form since the transition from Steve Crocker to Jon at ISI.  When we stood up the RFC Model 1, I believe ISI ended up writing the IETF a quit-claim for the RFC Series name and IPR.

In other words, the RFC editor prior to 2009 was not subordinate to the IAB, even if the RFC Editor had been "demoted" to just a liaison due to the Kobe changes.

That is not to suggest the relationship is some sort of
directive-management one.  In my current job, I have plenty of
colleagues who know more about their area than I do (i.e. all of
them), yet I am responsible for their direction and in this formal
sense they are "subordinate" to me.  If any of them messes up, they
are not responsible to my board: I am.  Co-equal suggests that perhaps
the RSE ought to be picked by nomcom.  I'm not too sure that is
desirable.

This is a either-or fallacy argument that I hope won't be repeated.   It makes even less sense for the Nomcom to make the RSE selection than what the IAB is currently proposing.  I won't repeat for the third or fourth time why I think what the IAB is currently seems to be suggesting is probably also not the right approach.

In any event, until we turned this position into a contractor, I think the "co-equal to the IAB and IESG" pretty much described the relationship.  I think we need something like that going forward, even if it gives the current I* leadership some pause.

Later, Mike

Best regards,

A