On 1/13/2020 2:43 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
There seems to be an implication in Mike's description that I find
troublesome. It may well not be intended by Mike. I apologize if I
am over-reacting.
If we were to insist that WG chairs or ADs recuse themselves from
taking positions on technology that matters to their employer, we
would quickly find ourselves in a position where we could not get any
work done. Whether vendors or operators, our leaders care about the
technology we work on. They (more accurately, we) work on the stuff
daily, and work on the stuff at the IETF. All of the routing ADs
would probably have to recuse themselves from all of the routing
work. That sounds backwards.
Yes, We do ask that folks disclose their primary affiliation. I
believe we ask that for WG chairs, for ADs, and for IAB members. That
gives the community the information about the situation. That is VERY
different from asking folks not to participate in leadership decisions
about work that may affect their employer.
Yours,
Joel
Hi Joel -
No apologies necessary - happy to clarify as needed.
Here's what I thought I wrote (between the lines!):
1) If you've publicly disclosed a conflict, feel free to participate in
the process of building a standard. If the standard comes before you
on the IESG (e.g. standards vote) or IAB (appeal), best to recuse. I
mostly don't have a problem with being an active advocate for something
- but being in the selection process - especially if competing standards
- is probably reaching over the line. Mostly I see this behavior from
the various ADs and IAB members already.
2) If you've disclosed the conflict, and aren't participating in a
specific standards building process, if the standards comes before you,
has competitive benefits for your employer (e.g. mainly contributed by
your employer or co-employees or standardizes your employers
implementation choices over others), consider whether recusal is
necessary and whether you need to put your two cents worth in given a
non-conflicted co-AD? A "maybe recuse" tick box here is one or more of
Author is an employee, Editor is an employee, WG chair is an employee.
3) If you done a redacted disclosure, avoid even participating in the
process of building a standard as its impossible for the rest of us to
understand that there may be more than just your best technical
judgement at work. Having your relationship popup publicly later on
would tend to taint the standards process and could give a competitor
some basis for various legal actions both against you and against the
IETF leadership.
4) If you really must participate, paper the hell out of it and make
sure you have your leadership peers are on board - e.g. they have to be
able to read past the redactions and be of the opinion that its good
technical judgement playing here.
As someone else mentioned - this is one of the reasons why most of the
AD positions are two deep.
I don't think I'm asking for "folks not to participate in leadership
decisions about work that may affect their employer", what I am
suggesting is that when in the "decider" role, that the person takes a
very close look at the optics, and avoids blatant conflicts of
interest. 90% of the time these will be "don't care" decisions for
both the employer and competitors. It's that other 10% where we might
end up in trouble.
Later, Mike
