Subject: [Iasa20] Benjamin Kaduk's No Objection on draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc4071bis-09: (with COMMENT)

From: Benjamin Kaduk via Datatracker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 06:24:30 -0700

Benjamin Kaduk has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc4071bis-09: No Objection

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COMMENT:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Four paragraphs is fairly long for an Abstract.

Section 1

                                                           Under this
   structure, the Internet Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) is
   eliminated, and its oversight and advising functions transferred to
   the IETF LLC Board.

(I note that the Abstract uses the past tense "was eliminated", and also
differs about whether the 'I' is "Internet" or "IETF".)
Are we comfortable tossing out the concept of the IAOC with no lead-up
or reference?

Section 2

It's great to say that no changes are made, but that doesn't help
someone looking for the current procedures if we don't provide a
reference to what the current procedures are.

Section 4.2

   o  The Board of Directors of the IETF LLC - formally a multi-member
      "manager" of the IETF LLC on behalf of ISOC - assumes the
      oversight responsibilities of the IAOC.

I'm not sure whether there's any ambiguity about whether "of" means
"over" or "from", to a reader who doesn't already know that it means
"from".

Section 6.2

   As noted above, a maximum of two Directors may be appointed by the
   IETF LLC Board.  They can obviously choose to appoint none, one, or
   two.  These appointments need not be on an exceptional basis, but
   rather be routine, and may occur at any time of the year since it is
   on an as-needed basis.

nit: I think there's a word missing here, maybe in "can rather be routine".
There also seems to be a singular/plural mismatch between "these" and
"it".

   The appointment of a Board-appointed Director requires a two-thirds
   majority vote of the Directors then in office, and the appointee
   shall take office immediately upon appointment.  [...]

Upon appointment, or upon appointment *and confirmation*?

   The Board may decide on a case-by-case basis how long each term shall
   be, factoring in the restriction for consecutive terms in
   Section 6.4.

Section 6.5 also seems relevant.

Section 6.10

                                     If a quorum is not present at any
   meeting of the Board, the Directors present may adjourn the meeting
   from time to time, without notice other than announcement at the
   meeting, until a quorum is present.  [...]

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of "from time to time" in this
sentence.  (Barry seems to have covered this already, though.)

Section 7.7

   The IETF LLC exists to support the IETF, IAB, and IRTF.  Therefore,
   the IETF LLC's funding and all revenues, in-kind contributions, and
   other income that comprise that funding shall be used solely to
   support activities related to the IETF, IAB, IRTF, and RFC Editor,
   and for no other purposes.

Why are the lists in the first and second sentences different?

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 11:05:48 -0400

Thanks, Ben! Responses inline, pointing to opened github issues that we'll
bang out shortly...

This is a pretty foundational document, so I think it's a rarity.

> Are we comfortable tossing out the concept of the IAOC with no lead-up
We'll fix both the tense confusion (will try to prefer present tense, if
possible):

https://github.com/IASA2/draft-ietf-iasa2-struct/issues/99

Should we point to the definitions to fix the last problem? We can easily
say "See Section 4.1" for the definitions or we could insert something like:

OLD

Under this

NEW

Under this
   structure, the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) --
   the previous administrative oversight body for the IETF -- is
   eliminated, and its oversight and advising functions transferred to
   the IETF LLC Board.

Holler if that works.

Section 2
> reference to what the current procedures are.
Here, are you saying that we should enrich that paragraph with citations?
So, something like:

OLD

The document does not propose any changes related to the standards
   process as currently conducted by the Internet Engineering Steering
   Group (IESG) and Internet Architecture Board (IAB).  In addition, no
   changes are made to the appeals chain, the process for making and
   confirming IETF and IAB appointments, the technical work of the
   Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), or to ISOC's membership in or
   support of other organizations.

NEW (added three BCP refs):

The document does not propose any changes related to the standards
   process as currently conducted by the Internet Engineering Steering
   Group (IESG) and Internet Architecture Board (IAB) [BCP 9].  In
addition, no
   changes are made to the appeals chain, the process for making and
   confirming IETF and IAB appointments [BCP 10], the technical work of the
   Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) [BCP 8], or to ISOC's membership in
or
   support of other organizations.

Section 4.2
> "over" or "from", to a reader who doesn't already know that it means
Is this just saying you think it reads better if s/of the IAOC/from the
IAOC/ ?

> There also seems to be a singular/plural mismatch between "these" and

How about: s/rather be routine/can be routine/ ?

> Upon appointment, or upon appointment *and confirmation*?
Good catch, will fix by making that addition:

https://github.com/IASA2/draft-ietf-iasa2-struct/issues/100

> Section 6.5 also seems relevant.
This is a typo; it should point to 6.5, will change.

https://github.com/IASA2/draft-ietf-iasa2-struct/issues/101

> sentence.  (Barry seems to have covered this already, though.)

Yes, Barry proposed a fix that would deal with this, will update in the
next version:

https://github.com/IASA2/draft-ietf-iasa2-struct/issues/102

> Why are the lists in the first and second sentences different?

Because the RFC Editor is contracted through the IAB, but that somewhere in
the WG discussion it felt important to call out in the second list. I don't
think we can just add the RFC Editor to the first list... but we could do
something like this: "The IETF LLC exists to support the IETF, IRTF, and
IAB (through which the RFC Editor receives support)."

best, Joe

-- 
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
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---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 11:48:33 -0400

On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 11:05 AM Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Because the RFC Editor is contracted through the IAB, but that somewhere
> in the WG discussion it felt important to call out in the second list. I
> don't think we can just add the RFC Editor to the first list... but we
> could do something like this: "The IETF LLC exists to support the IETF,
> IRTF, and IAB (through which the RFC Editor receives support)."
>

Mirja pointed out correctly that the RFC Editor is contracted by the LLC,
so I am wrong here. best, Joe

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 10:25:00 -0700

Howdy,

> so I am wrong here. best, Joe

It's a bit more complicated than that, but since we are creating a 6635bis,
maybe leave this topic to the that?

Ted

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 12:28:01 -0500

> maybe leave this topic to the that?

To be clear, I'm not insisting on a change here, and just wondered if the
lists were supposed to be synchronized (or not).

-Ben

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:31:46 -0400

On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 1:25 PM Ted Hardie <[email-masked]> wrote:

> It's a bit more complicated than that, but since we are creating a
> 6635bis, maybe leave this topic to the that?
>
> Ted
>

Ah, yes, that seems wise. Thanks, Joe

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:37:47 -0400

> On Apr 11, 2019, at 1:28 PM, Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

As noted in the other thread, the RFC Editor is mentioned in places related to the budget/finances because (I think) the WG wanted it written down that the LLC budget would account for the expense associated with the RFC Editor.

Alissa

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

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:42:24 -0400

On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 1:37 PM Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]> wrote:

> As noted in the other thread, the RFC Editor is mentioned in places
> related to the budget/finances because (I think) the WG wanted it written
> down that the LLC budget would account for the expense associated with the
> RFC Editor.
>

Yes, I believe the right WG discussion to point to is Alissa's AD review
and that thread here:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/iasa20/JIfO6c1_RwOaBOQRfgsu3Aj2OwM

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:48:57 -0400

Hi,

> On 11 Apr 2019, at 11:05, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Ben! Responses inline, pointing to opened github issues that we'll bang out shortly...
> 
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 9:24 AM Benjamin Kaduk via Datatracker <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 

You’d be surprised how often that is said.  It would be good to crunch down.  A non-lawyer has to read this thing.

Eliot

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:54:35 -0400

On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 13:48 Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> wrote:

> You’d be surprised how often that is said.  It would be good to crunch
> down.  A non-lawyer has to read this thing.
>

I'd really rather not, but that's just author-clingy-ness and an aversion
to big changes in text. One proposal would be just eliminate everything but
the first paragraph of the Abstract (I think all of that is repeated at
greater length in the intro).

Joseph Lorenzo Hall

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:00:33 -0400

> On 11 Apr 2019, at 13:54, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> I'd really rather not, but that's just author-clingy-ness and an aversion to big changes in text. One proposal would be just eliminate everything but the first paragraph of the Abstract (I think all of that is repeated at greater length in the intro).

Actually, I think you’re fine if you drop everything but the LAST paragraph.  That paragraph very succinctly states what the document is.  Also keep the last sentence about obsoleting RFC 4071.

Eliot

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:02:10 -0500

>    eliminated, and its oversight and advising functions transferred to

This looks better to me, but do note that this is a non-blocking comment
and I do not expect any specific change just on my account.

> Here, are you saying that we should enrich that paragraph with citations?

Well, it's not entirely clear.  It could easily become a linkfest that
doesn't help anyone, and the standard other solution (just removing the
non-normative text) doesn't really seem appropriate in this case.

>    support of other organizations.

But since we have nice tidy BCP references, it seems like that might be a
useful thing to do.

> Is this just saying you think it reads better if s/of the IAOC/from the

Yes.  But this change is entirely at the document editor's discretion (not
mine), IMO.

> How about: s/rather be routine/can be routine/ ?

Sure.

> https://github.com/IASA2/draft-ietf-iasa2-struct/issues/102

Yup, looks good.

-Ben

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:02:18 -0400

On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 14:00 Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Actually, I think you’re fine if you drop everything but the LAST
> paragraph.  That paragraph very succinctly states what the document is.
> Also keep the last sentence about obsoleting RFC 4071.
>

Thank you. Would love to hear from others.

Joseph Lorenzo Hall

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 18:03:49 +0000

You could drop para2 and para3 with no real loss, and the first sentence of para4.

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:05:29 -0400

> I'd really rather not, but that's just author-clingy-ness and an aversion to big changes
> in text. One proposal would be just eliminate everything but the first paragraph of the
> Abstract (I think all of that is repeated at greater length in the intro).

How about this as a compromise?:

   The IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) was originally
   established in 2005.  In the years since then, the needs of the IETF
   evolved in ways that required changes to its administrative
   structure.  The purpose of this document is to document and describe
   the IASA 2.0 structure, explaining the structure of the new IETF
   Administration Limited Liability Company, the roles and responsibilities
   that are involved, and the membership and selection of the IETF LLC Board.

   This document obsoletes RFC 4071, RFC 4333, and RFC 7691.

Barry

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:06:30 -0400

> You could drop para2 and para3 with no real loss, and the first sentence

Ok, what about dropping those two paragraphs and the last sentence of the
first paragraph, so:

OLD

   the IASA 2.0 structure.

   Under IASA 2.0, the work of the IETF's administrative and fundraising
   tasks is conducted by an administrative organization, the IETF
   Administration Limited Liability Company ("IETF LLC").  Under this
   structure, the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) was
   eliminated, and its oversight and advising functions transferred to
   the IETF LLC Board.

   The IETF LLC provides the corporate legal home for the IETF, the
   Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and the Internet Research Task
   Force (IRTF), and financial support for the operation of the RFC
   Editor.

   This document describes the structure of the IETF Administrative
   Support Activity, version 2 (IASA 2.0).  It defines the roles and
   responsibilities of the IETF LLC Board, the IETF Executive Director,
   and ISOC in the fiscal and administrative support of the IETF
   standards process.  It also defines the membership and selection
   rules for the IETF LLC Board.

NEW

   structure.

   This document describes the structure of the IETF Administrative
   Support Activity, version 2 (IASA 2.0).  It defines the roles and
   responsibilities of the IETF LLC Board, the IETF Executive Director,
   and ISOC in the fiscal and administrative support of the IETF
   standards process.  It also defines the membership and selection
   rules for the IETF LLC Board.

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:07:17 -0400

>    This document obsoletes RFC 4071, RFC 4333, and RFC 7691.

 I like this; disregard my previous suggestion. Holler if it doesn't work
for anyone.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:08:53 -0400

> On Apr 11, 2019, at 2:02 PM, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 14:00 Eliot Lear <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 11 Apr 2019, at 13:54, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>> 

I think a blend of the first and last paragraphs is best.  There is overlap between them already:

Abstract

   The IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) was originally
   established in 2005.  In the years since then, the needs of the IETF
   evolved in ways that required changes to its administrative
   structure.  The purpose of this document is to document and describe
   the IETF Administrative Support Activity, version 2 (IASA 2.0).  It
   defines the roles and responsibilities of the IETF Administrative
   LLC Board, the IETF Executive Director, and the Internet Society in
   the fiscal and administrative support of the IETF standards process.
   It also defines the membership and selection rules for the IETF
   Administrative LLC Board.

Russ

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:16:06 -0400

> I think a blend of the first and last paragraphs is best. There is overlap

+1 nicely done.

    > ----------------------------------------------------
    > Alternatives:

    > ----------------------------------------------------

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:26:34 -0400

>    This document obsoletes RFC 4071, RFC 4333, and RFC 7691.
Works for me. Will make this change in the working document shortly. Thanks
to everyone for being so responsive. best, Joe

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2019 08:32:30 +1200

> Thank you. Would love to hear from others.

I agree with Eliot. No abstract should ever be TL;DR.

   Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2019 08:34:04 +1200

I still agree with Eliot ;-)

Regards
   Brian

On 12-Apr-19 06:06, Joseph Lorenzo Hall wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 2:03 PM Salz, Rich <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>     You could drop para2 and para3 with no real loss, and the first sentence of para4.____
> 
>     __ __
> 
> 
> Ok, what about dropping those two paragraphs and the last sentence of the first paragraph, so:
> 
> OLD
> 
> e: [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>, p: 202.407.8825, pgp: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key