Re: DISCUSSION: should there be term limits?

[todd glassey <todd.glassey@worldnet.att.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Elz" <kre@MUNNARI.OZ.AU>
To: <ietf-nomcom@lists.elistx.com>; <poised@lists.tislabs.com>
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 2:30 AM
Subject: Re: DISCUSSION: should there be term limits?


> No, I don't think we need term limits.
>
> The "problem" such as it is of appointees serving forever is largely
> that it is very hard to find people who are all of qualified, acceptable,
> and willing, to take on one of these rules.
>
> If you look, I think you'll find that the "problem" occurs more in the
> IESG than the IAB - that's largely because much more is required of IESG
> members than IAB members, so it is harder to find qualified willing
> candidates, even before the question of whether they're acceptable is
> raised.

Then you need some kind of clean tracking system so that submitters are
guarenteed that their materials recieve or are properly vetted as per the
IETF process.

>
> Brian has indicated that he will have "a number of things to say" which
> "cut quite deeply into the status quo" during the plenary at the IETF
> meeting.   I won't be there, and I have no idea what he's going to say,
> but I have been of the opinion that some radical changes are needed for
> a long time now.  When I first suggested this I was told I had no IESG
> experience, and so no idea ... then I became IAB liaison to the IESG for
> a while, so now I have some (no longer very recent) experience of how
> the IESG works - my opinions changed not in the slightest.

One thing that is simple is that the IETF needs some real culpability for
what it is and what it does. It wants to have the same type of reception
that the more formal standards organizations have without paying the price
for what it costs to take a Standard though their process models so then the
IETF and IESG become mechanisms to short circuit the value of an ITU like
standard.

The only people this benefits is the owners of the Implementations and the
publishers that have their own value in the industry increased by the number
of Internet Standards they can claim.

>
> That is, the IESG is way overworked, they have been given two separate
> jobs to do - unrelated jobs - and ones which actually conflict with
> each other.

Which is why the organizational model of the IETF and the IESG is broken.

>
> It is no surprise that it is hard to find people to take on IESG
positions,
> and hence, that there isn't a lot of churn.
>
> The two jobs are managing the working groups (which includes creating
> new ones, terminating old ones, making sure they're making progress, ...)
> (and day to day administrative issues, though much of that gets delegated
> to the secretariat, as it should).

No the two jobs are Managing the continuing IPO Stream funneled into the
IESG for approval. This has to do with managing the output of the WG and
nothing else. It says nothing to the abilities of the WG managers either.
And the second is in approving the portions of this IP stream that are ready
to go into the ISOC Portfolio.

The Secretariates job simply is the head traffic cop to make sure that the
IP keeps flowing. The problem that the IETF is choking on is that this IP
must be usable in order to continue the burn justification that has been set
in place and its not always. In fact any protocol that does not have a real
world user should be redirected to the IRTF I think.

>
> And validating that the result of the WG process is truly acceptable to
> the IETF as a whole - that it meets the standards, and has rough consensus
> of the whole IETF.

The ITEF has no mechanism other than the verbal testimony of its Chairs and
Secretariate that things are cool and that the rules are all being followed,
including the intent of the rules. This is the key failing of the current
IETF I think.

>
> Those are actually contradictory - as manager of the working group, the AD
> is expected to champion that group's work at the management level.  In
fact,
> IESG rules actually require the AD to vote "yes" to any WG doc from their
> WG for the doc to be considered at all (what the rest of the IESG thinks
> about a doc is irrelevant unless the AD in question has approved it).
> So, to get the doc considered at all, the AD has to say it is fine, and
> the IETF has approved it - which puts them in the position of having to
> go against the expressed wishes of their working group, or perhaps
misrepresent
> the actual wishes of the IETF as a whole (and if the AD happens to be
> mistaken in their judgement of the latter - believe that the doc isn't
> approved by the IETF, and tell the WG "no", then there is no way other
than
> the appeals process for the rest of the IESG to correct the mistaken AD).
>
> I firmly believe that these two roles should be separated out into two
> different bodies.   The new one could be much smaller than the current
> IESG (about 7 people would be right I think, perhaps even 5), the IESG
> may even decide that will less work to do, it also needs less people
> though I'd hope not - as part of the reason for a change like this is
> to make it require less effort to participate, reducing the workload is
> an aim.

This might work. At the least it will send a message that a WG Chair is not
a Throne nor is the Secretariates.

>
> The only real objection to this that I have heard when I have proposed it
> in the past, is that it is too hard to find volunteers when we need 25,
> requiring 30 or more would be that much harder.

Then the IETF is too big for its own structure to support and that says it
all. It needs to be cut up into more managable slices.

>
> But we really don't know - and unless we try it, can't know.  The work
> required and the type of person required, will be quite different for
> this new body, so guessing how many volunteers there might be, cannot
> really be possible without any experience at all.
>
> My guess is that if this were to happen, then the result would be more
> people in management type rolls, hence more opportunity for people to
> get involved.  Also a lower workload on those who are involved, and
> thus, hopefully a bigger willing candidate pool - which might then allow
> more changes to me made with less harm to the I* overall - and without
> requiring term limits to force that to happen.

OK - But otherwise would you support term limits if you could not get this
passsed?

Todd
>
> kre
>