Subject: [Iasa20] DISCUSSION: ISOC Eligible for NomCom in <draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc7437bis-00>

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2018 14:24:44 -0700

Hi,

One of the changes in the draft was to add that employees or contractors of the IETF LLC were not eligible to serve as voting members of the NomCom.   We think this is reasonable.

A questions that come up is should also apply to employees of and/or contractors to ISOC.  The text in the draft:

4.15.  Not Qualified

   DISCUSSION:

      Changed IAOC to LLC Board members, and added that employees or
      contractors of the LLC may not serve as voting members of the
      NomCom.  Should anything be said about ISOC contractors or
      employees?

   Any person who serves on the Internet Society Board of Trustees, the
   IETF LLC Board of Directors, the IAB, or the IESG, including those
   who serve on these bodies in ex officio positions, may not volunteer
   to serve as voting members of the nominating committee.  In addition,
   employees or contractors of the IETF LLC may not volunteer to serve
   as voting members of the nominating committee.  Liaisons to these
   bodies from other bodies or organizations are not excluded by this
   rule.

We would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,
Bob & Jason

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2018 14:35:51 -0700

On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 2:24 PM Bob Hinden <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> One of the changes in the draft was to add that employees or contractors
> of the IETF LLC were not eligible to serve as voting members of the
> NomCom.   We think this is reasonable.
>
> A questions that come up is should also apply to employees of and/or
> contractors to ISOC.  The text in the draft:
>
> I personally do not think that the restriction needs to be extended to
ISOC employees or contractors.  The reasoning for the ISOC BoT is that it
is in the appeals chain, which would not be the case for employees or
contractors (barring the CEO, who is barred by being on the BoT). For other
concerns around capture, the same mechanisms (limit of two per org, random
selection) seem to apply and be sufficient.

Again, my personal opinion,

Ted

> _______________________________________________
> iasa20 mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20
>

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2018 17:56:06 -0400

In my opinion, employees for the IETF LLC should be excluded.

Russ

> On Oct 12, 2018, at 5:24 PM, Bob Hinden <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> Hi,
>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 14:37:14 +1300

> Again, my personal opinion,

I concur with Ted. We've seen cases of ISOC staff participating actively in
the IETF, and it would seem actively unfair to exclude them from NomCom
eligibility, since there is no automatic conflict of interest.

Note that the set of LLC contractors who are active IETF participants
will definitely not be the empty set, but I think those individuals will
have to accept that there's a conflict.

Regards
    Brian

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 02:39:49 +0100

On 12/10/18 22:24, Bob Hinden wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> One of the changes in the draft was to add that employees or
> contractors of the IETF LLC were not eligible to serve as voting
> members of the NomCom.   We think this is reasonable.
> 
> contractors to ISOC. 

I think it would be better to disallow ISOC employees and
anyone substantially funded by ISOC from being nomcom voting
members.

Cheers,
S.

> The text in the draft:
> contractors of the LLC may not serve as voting members of the NomCom.
> Should anything be said about ISOC contractors or employees?
> 
> to serve as voting members of the nominating committee.  In
> addition, employees or contractors of the IETF LLC may not volunteer
> to serve as voting members of the nominating committee.  Liaisons to
> these bodies from other bodies or organizations are not excluded by
> this rule.
> 
> Thanks, Bob & Jason
> _______________________________________________ iasa20 mailing list 
> [email-masked] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20
>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 14:48:20 +1300

> anyone substantially funded by ISOC from being nomcom voting

Quite apart from disagreeing (see my previous message), I call foul.
This is way out of charter scope for this WG. Nothing to do with
rebooting IASA.

    Brian

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 Oct 2018 21:52:21 -0400

>anyone substantially funded by ISOC from being nomcom voting

In practice I doubt there would be many conflicts, but the optics
would be better to exclude ISOC employees.  I think the idea of
"substantially funded" is right but I don't know how you implement it,
so I'd make it simpler and also exclude any ISOC contractor.

R's,
JOhn

---

From: Joel Halpern <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2018 21:57:46 -0400

I have to agree with Brian's point that whether what has been suggested 
is good, bad, or indifferent, it is unrelated to the changes from IAOC 
to IETF LLC, and therefore out of scope for the working group.

I hope nobody here wants to open every aspect of our administrative 
procedures for modification.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 03:10:32 +0100

Hiya,

On 13/10/18 02:48, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Quite apart from disagreeing (see my previous message), 

Disagreeing is entirely reasonable.

> I call foul.

I'm honestly not sure myself TBH. We're now making IASA a more
formal part of ISOC (to achieve the ability to have a bank a/c etc),
so I'd say there is an argument that that reasonably changes the
situation in terms of (un)desirable nomcom voting members. My take
is that these changes ought affect the ability for ISOC employees (*)
to be nomcom voting members, but I'd accept the consensus if it
lands elsewhere. I don't think this is clearly out of scope for
the WG though, given where the WG has landed in terms of the LLC
model.

Cheers,
S.

(*) To answer John L: Yes, it's hard to differentiate partly-funded
ISOC folks. However, I think we ought put in some effort there - the
probability that ISOC funding schemes (for good reasons) provide
support for yet more IETF participants over the next 10 years or so
seems high enough to warrant consideration.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 15:22:02 +1300

Hi Stephen,
> formal part of ISOC (to achieve the ability to have a bank a/c etc),

We've made it a formally *separate* ("disregarded") entity rather
than having the IAD as a regular ISOC staff member, with some other
unknown number of ISOC staff working informally for IASA. So my
take is that IASA2.0 has increased the separation and reduced both the
real and theoretical risks of conflict.

And if you want to talk about loaded NomCom volunteer lists, I think
you'll find that the real bias and risk of conflict lies elsewhere.
That's why we have the two-per-company rule.

      Brian

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 03:38:33 +0100

Hiya,

On 13/10/18 03:22, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> We've made it a formally *separate* ("disregarded") 

FWIW, for me, the new setup (taking into account the term
"disregarded") implies that we're ending up more connected to
ISOC than before. (I'm not arguing against, nor for, that
outcome.)

> entity rather

Mine is that we've (so far, and hopefully increasingly) made the
reality of (in)separation from ISOC more transparent, but that
seems to me to only better highly reasons to improve things in
this case. (And again, others may reasonably disagree.)

> That's why we have the two-per-company rule.

Sure. But it's not only loading that counts for a conflict IMO.
(And to be clear, I'd argue myself that anything identifiably
owned or controlled by an I*-like entity ought end up with zero
related nomcom-voting buddies.) That last would include w3c, icann,
ieee 802, etc, and yes, would be hard to characterise.

Cheers,
S.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2018 22:34:55 -0600

Hi,

Historically, I have thought that a good practice, so I'm not actually 
opposed; but I'd like to hear more about why.

If the reasoning had to do with funding source, then actually the 
prohibition ought to accrue to funding sources, and substantial donors 
would end up being prohibited too. That seems like a problem.

If the reasoning has to do with the sole member's privilege (and I can see 
an argument there), then it suggests the member might actually exercise 
that more aggressively than seems contemplated in the agreement.

If the reasoning has to do with the one appointment, then why does that 
prohibition not extend to those employed in common with sitting LLC board 
members?

I think this needs better justification if it is to be a prohibition. 
Again, I can think of reasons, but the reasoning actually feels weaker to 
me under the LLC model than it used to, and we didn't have that prohibition 
before.

A

--
Please excuse my clumbsy thums
----------
On October 12, 2018 19:40:04 Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]> wrote:

> ----------

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2018 21:47:07 +0100

Hiya,

On 13/10/18 05:34, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> Hi,i

I think having ISOC employees as nomcom voting members could
give the impression that ISOC have too much influence over the
IETF. ISOC already have so many potential ways that one might
choose to worry about them having influence over the IETF, that
I think it's generally a good plan to remove those where we can.
(That's without casting any aspersions on anyone working for
or with ISOC, many of whom would otherwise be fine nomcom voting
members and who continue to do great work in the IETF in all
sorts of roles.)

For example, it'd seem odd to have the ISOC BoT confirm IAB
members selected in part by an ISOC employee - the BoT's
independence as a confirming body would seem less pure in
such a situation. Especially if they chose to not confirm
some appointment.

> would end up being prohibited too. That seems like a problem.

When I said "substantially funded by" I meant to try include
people whose main funding (aka salary) is at or near 100% from
ISOC. Maybe something like "full-time or near full-time contractor
or employee" would be close enough as a phrase. I realise it
might be too hard to get phraseology for anything beyond employee
correct there.

> 
> If the reasoning has to do with the sole member's privilege (and I can
> see an argument there), then it suggests the member might actually
> exercise that more aggressively than seems contemplated in the agreement.
> 
> prohibition not extend to those employed in common with sitting LLC
> board members?

I'm not sure I'm following the 2 paras above really but perhaps
my earlier text answers for you?

> Again, I can think of reasons, but the reasoning actually feels weaker
> to me under the LLC model than it used to, and we didn't have that
> prohibition before.

Interesting. Seems more like the opposite to me.

Cheers,
S.

PS: Just to re-iterate: I think such an additional constraint
would be a good thing and is arguably justifiable as part of
this WG's work. If that doesn't happen, it won't be the end of
the world.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2018 11:34:33 +0200

> contractors to ISOC.  The text in the draft:

We have accepted them in the past, which I thought was a bit odd at first.
Given that the LLC places a further distance between ISOC and the IETF,
I see no reason to exclude them, particularly given the two person limit.

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 11:25:09 +0200

There might be a few more facts relevant to reasoning about this. One is that in theory ISOC does have a bit of extra influence over the nomcom compared to your typical organization sponsoring people, because the ISOC CEO selects the nomcom chair. Other facts below.

> On Oct 13, 2018, at 6:34 AM, Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Historically, I have thought that a good practice, so I'm not actually opposed; but I'd like to hear more about why.

My understanding is that it has been either formal or informal ISOC policy on and off over the years to not have ISOC staff volunteer for the nomcom.

> 
> If the reasoning had to do with funding source, then actually the prohibition ought to accrue to funding sources, and substantial donors would end up being prohibited too. That seems like a problem.

It may be relevant to note that the IETF gets the majority of its funding from ISOC. No corporate sponsor gets even close to covering 50% of the IETF budget.

Alissa

> 
> If the reasoning has to do with the sole member's privilege (and I can see an argument there), then it suggests the member might actually exercise that more aggressively than seems contemplated in the agreement.
> 
> If the reasoning has to do with the one appointment, then why does that prohibition not extend to those employed in common with sitting LLC board members?
> 
> I think this needs better justification if it is to be a prohibition. Again, I can think of reasons, but the reasoning actually feels weaker to me under the LLC model than it used to, and we didn't have that prohibition before.
> 
> A
> 
> --

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 08:39:27 -0400

+1 (if anything, we could have an extra approval step for ISOC
employees, but I think that is overkill)
On Sun, Oct 14, 2018 at 5:34 AM Michael Richardson

-- 
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Chief Technologist, Center for Democracy & Technology [https://www.cdt.org]
1401 K ST NW STE 200, Washington DC 20005-3497
e: [email-masked], p: 202.407.8825, pgp: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key
Fingerprint: 3CA2 8D7B 9F6D DBD3 4B10  1607 5F86 6987 40A9 A871

---

From: Gonzalo Camarillo <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 12:53:52 +0000

Hi,

for additional background, please find below the email on this subject I
and Olaf sent to the main IETF list a year ago. Down the road, we will
of course be happy to follow any policy it is agreed on.

Cheers,

Gonzalo

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Policy for ISOC staff and board members regarding the IETF Nomcom
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2017 22:28:32 +0300
From: Gonzalo Camarillo <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]

Hi,

earlier this year, before the IETF meeting in Prague, we received some
feedback when a number of ISOC staff members were selected to serve on
the Nomcom. The executive summary is that we have decided that going
forward ISOC staff and ISOC board members will *not* volunteer to
serve on the IETF Nomcom.

If you are interested in the background to this decision, please
continue reading.

Since 2011 various ISOC staff members have volunteered to serve on the
IETF Nomcom. We saw this as a good thing (i.e., community service)
and, despite the fact that the list of voluteers has always been
public, nobody from ISOC or from the IETF community ever considered
this to be a problem. In any case, until this year the dice never
rolled in the direction of ISOC staff.

This year 2 ISOC staff members were randomly selected to serve on the
Nomcom. Additionally, at a later point one additional Nomcom member
listed ISOC as his affiliation. The former happened because a number
of IETFers (including both ISOC and non-ISOC people) ended up on the
volunteers list because they had volunteered to serve in the past,
even if they had not volunteered to serve the last time around. The
latter happened because the individual involved kindly put Internet
Society as his affiliation on his badge because ISOC payed for his
travel in the context of supporting the fellow program.

After the volunteers were announced Dan York noticed that his name was
on the list and, naturally, withdrew. He had not realized he was on
the volunteers list and simply does not have the cycles to serve at
this point in time. As a result, this year there is one ISOC staff
member (Neil Harper) who serves on the Nomcom.

While there has been no formal appeal or complain, the episode did
cause some hallway conversations and reflections leading to the
following principle: as the organizational home and the final appeal
body for the IETF, the appointment of ISOC affiliates in the IETF
governance structure should be done done either on behalf of the
community or as part of an ex-officio role as documented in the
relevant RFC or charter.

For example, the appointment of an ISOC staff or board member as
working group chair by the IESG would be an appointment on behalf of
the community. The appointment of ISOC's CEO to serve on the IAOC is a
chartered role. On the other hand, the appointment by a random process
to serve on the Nomcom does not pass the test above.

To prevent any perception of conflict of interest we have decided that
going forward (i.e., starting with next year's Nomcom cycle) ISOC
staff an board members will not volunteer to serve on the Nomcom. Any
consultants working for ISOC will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis
but, in any case, ISOC will not pay people to participate in the IETF
Nomcom.

Cheers,

Gonzalo Camarillo (for the board)
Chair - ISOC Board of Trustees

Olaf Kolkman (for staff)
Chief Internet Technology Officer - ISOC

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 16:29:07 +0200

the ietf is one leg of the three-legged stool of internet stewardship:
ietf, isoc, iana.  imiho, there are two considerations on the question
of allowing/encouraging players in one to also play a senior role in
another: concentration of power and conflict of interest.

imiho, this issue is analogous to the transparency issue.  it is
unlikely that there actually are cigars and brandy behind the curtains;
but transparency at least forces them to share. :)

in the inter-organization question, 96.3% of the time the two threats
above, concentration and conflict of interest, will not actually happen.
but it is probably prudent to make clear that the other 3.7% will not
happen.

the downside if this conservstive position is that it removes sources of
clue in an environment where clue with the time to volunteer is low.
but this amplifies the concentration problem.  sorry; no free lunch.

randy

---

From: Joel Halpern <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 10:45:53 -0400

I appreciate the care Gonzalo and Olaf gave this issue.  It is clealry 
within ISOC's remit to choose that ISOC staff not volunteer for the IETF 
nomcom.

Whether the IETF should prohibit such volunteering is a separate 
question.  I have a lot of difficulty with the notion of even 
considering such a change as being tied up with the move from the IAOC 
to the IETF LLC.  Yes, I saw the arguments about more or less influence. 
  Gien that it is at MOST loosely coupled to the problem at hand, I ask 
the chairs to simply rule it out of scope.

Yours,
Joel

PS: For context, I honestly do not know which side of the question I 
would fall on where it to be deemed necessary for the working group to 
actually make a decision.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 11:38:30 -0400

Hi,

Two replies at once, note.

> I think it's generally a good plan to remove those where we can.

I tend to agree in general, but this issue is surely one where the
analogy with (e.g.) global hosts is strongest.  In general, the hosts
and other companies involved in the IETF have quite a bit more at
stake in the outcome than the Internet Society, since ISOC doesn't
actually build commercial products that encode the outcome of
standards decisions.

> such a situation. Especially if they chose to not confirm

This seems a rather stronger argument: since the organization is in
the confirmation chain, then it can't be involved in generating the
appointments.  I wonder whether we want to draw harder distinctions
between the BoT and the ISOC staff, though.

> Interesting. Seems more like the opposite to me.

Yeah, you said that before, but I find the position hard to
understand.  At the moment, the IETF is literally an activity of ISOC,
and there is no formal separation between ISOC and IETF at all.  The
LLC creates such a formal separation, so I think that is significant.

> There might be a few more facts relevant to reasoning about this. One is that in theory ISOC does have a bit of extra influence over the nomcom compared to your typical organization sponsoring peop…

This is another good point, and another reason in favour of the
prohibition.

> My understanding is that it has been either formal or informal ISOC policy on and off over the years to not have ISOC staff volunteer for the nomcom.

It is definitely formal policy now.  That's part of why I'm asking
whether a prohibition encoded in these documents is a good idea: I
think the current policy is correct given the current state of
affairs, but that state of affairs could change in the future due to
evolution of the IETF and ISOC.  Removing the prohibition could be
difficult, and could deprive the nomcom of sources of support for
possible participants in it, so I wonder whether it would be good to
add such a prohibition.

> It may be relevant to note that the IETF gets the majority of its funding from ISOC. No corporate sponsor gets even close to covering 50% of the IETF budget.

That is certainly true now, and it's definitely a good reason for the
existing policy.  But the IETF fundraising position changes
significantly under this new model, and it could well be the case that
the ISOC contribution as a percentage of the IETF budget declines over
a long period of time.  In that case, one funder would be excluded
whereas other funders would not be.  That's why I'm asking whether
adding the prohibition to the RFC is wise.  I have no intention that
the ISOC policy about nomcom participation should change in the medium
term.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 16:32:06 +0000

VERY helpful - thank you Gonzalo!

JL

On 10/15/18, 8:54 AM, "iasa20 on behalf of Gonzalo Camarillo" <[email-masked] on behalf of [email-masked]> wrote:

    Hi,

    Cheers,
    
    Gonzalo
    
    -------- Forwarded Message --------
    Subject: Policy for ISOC staff and board members regarding the IETF Nomcom
    Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2017 22:28:32 +0300
    From: Gonzalo Camarillo <[email-masked]>
    To: [email-masked]
    
    Hi,

    

    

    
    Cheers,

    Olaf Kolkman (for staff)

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 16:36:49 +0000

Joel - I think it is quite fair for you and others to ask the scope question, and to suggest we maintain our narrow focus us on the IAOC-to-LLC changes. Still catching up on list discussion though...

JL

On 10/12/18, 9:58 PM, "iasa20 on behalf of Joel Halpern" <[email-masked] on behalf of [email-masked]> wrote:

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 16:41:49 +0000

Thanks for your response, Andrew. It seems like while you note that the probation is current practice today, it may be best left informal and thus undocumented in RFC 7437. And by leaving this open, future needs could enable a change in this policy without depending on an update of RFC 7437. 

I think this sentiment, in combination with concerns raised over whether this change would be within the scope of the WG's charter, suggests we should NOT make this addition to RFC 7437.

Thanks!
Jason 

On 10/15/18, 11:39 AM, "iasa20 on behalf of Andrew Sullivan" <[email-masked] on behalf of [email-masked]> wrote:

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 16:43:45 +0000

So coming back to Bob's question initially:
1 - Seems like no consensus on extending the prohibition to ISOC employees or contractors. 
2 - But there is support for prohibiting IETF LLC employees and contractors.

Thanks for a productive discussion!  Feel free to chime in on the suggested conclusions above. 

Jason 

On 10/12/18, 5:25 PM, "iasa20 on behalf of Bob Hinden" <[email-masked] on behalf of [email-masked]> wrote:

    Hi,

    
    4.15.  Not Qualified
    
       DISCUSSION:

    
    
    Thanks,
    Bob & Jason

---

From: Olaf Kolkman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2018 18:28:44 +0000

> anyone substantially funded by ISOC from being nomcom voting

FWIW… a few thoughts:

* I like ‘substantially funded by ISOC’ better than ‘contractors’. The reason is that we sometimes award small contracts to people that are active in the IETF. That ISOC pays should not block their path, I think.

* Part of why I feel ISOC BoT and Staff should not be noncom eligible is inspired from this sentence: _“The Internet Standards process is an activity of the Internet Society
that is organised and managed on behalf of the Internet community by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).”_[BCP9]. It is mainly the fact that the nomcom can appoint the entities in the appeal chain that stops at the BoT that makes we should prevent any  perception of Nomcom taint by ISOC. There are other reasons too (confirmation, influence, etc) and I think it is a low price to pay to prevent perceptions.

* The second bullet is a standardisation issue, so I have sympathy for the folk that say this is out of scope. That said, Gonzalo shared the _norm_ that we follow at ISOC currently and that, as far as I am concerned, will continue to be maintained.

—Olaf

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Oct 2018 19:17:29 -0000

In article <[email-masked]>,
>2 - But there is support for prohibiting IETF LLC employees and contractors.

In general that seems right.  I presume tools contracts will now come
through the LLC, so there will likely continue to be some small
contracts like the one I had for the DOIs.

One approach is squeaky clean, if you're an LLC contractor, no nomcom
for you this year.  The other is to weasel word it a little bit,
perhaps IETF LLC employees and contractors that get a substantial part
of their income from the LLC.  Don't try to define substantial, since
most people are reasonable and there's a challenge process if things
look dodgy.

I don't feel strongly either way but squeaky clean is easier to
implement at the cost of a slightly smaller pool of candidates.

R's,
John

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly