Subject: Re: [rfc-i] New proposal/New SOW comment period

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 10:44:46 -0400

Sarah,

I have tried, not completely successfully, to follow the
discussion since this note was posted, probably not completely
successfully. I've tried several times to draft notes analyzing
the situation, but the have all come out long enough that I was
concerned that few people would read them and few of those who
did would pay attention.  Because I've not run out of time, I
want to summarize what I believe are key points, most of which
appear to have received almost no discussion, and then make a
suggestion.  It is longer than I'd like but, with apologies to
Niklaus Wirth, I don't have time to make it much shorter.

First I think Mike's "try this" effort to recast the SOW is a
step in the right direction but skips over, probably wisely, a
key point.  If the comments and suggestion in this note go
nowhere, I think his draft is a better starting point than your/
the RSOC's original proposal.

However,...

A mistake (or more than one) was made that led to the current
situation.  You and the RSOC have apologized for your role in
that mistake and I, and I hope most others, have accepted that
apology.  The difficulty, which several people tried to get a
focus on (before IETF 105, at the plenary, and thereafter), was
the question of whether the RSOC (and, to some extent, the IAB)
understood (generally and consistent with community
understanding) the role and function of the RFC Series, the
relationship of the RSE to that function, the appropriate
interpretation of "oversight", some important management and
procurement differences between hiring and management of
high-level professional and, procurement of easily-substitutable
commodity items.  One thing that, AFAICT, we haven't seen is an
analysis by the RSOC and IAB about your assumptions.   Without
that and especially with a draft SOW that you have described as
being very close to the ones you've used before, it might be
reasonable to expect that regardless of what the SOW says, the
result will be more of the same in terms of issues with
management, oversight, etc., only with selection of candidates
who will put up with it.

To make things more complicated, I think there is a periodic
lingering suspicion in parts of the community that, after the
RFC++ BOF in July 2018 and the fairly clear message that any
such changes were in the province of the RSE, the people who had
advocated those changes hoped that Heather would swiftly address
and make them and that, when she didn't, they were happy to see
her announce her resignation, possibly tried to set up
circumstances under which should would do so,  and perhaps hoped
that she could be replaced by someone who would put compliance
to IAB/IESG wishes ahead of the well-being of the series or
broader community needs and consensus.   If one starts from that
rather paranoid view and the explanation about what was
misunderstood and how the misunderstandings are being corrected
suggested above is absent, then it is easy to see the current
proposals as steps in the direction of bringing strategy and
details for the series under firm IESG/IAB control and a little
bit short of sincere.

One of the key results of the above is that, coming out of
Montreal the IAB and RSOC had a serious credibility problem with
some portion of the community, I believe a large portion.  Many
of those who did not agree there was a problem understood that
others did.   Whether that perception is fair or not is almost
irrelevant.  It is the perception and the perception is a
problem for processes involving the RFC Editor function and the
IETF community generally.

Then this round of discussions and proposals started.  It
started with the decision to temporarily split the RSE role into
two separate jobs and and job descriptions and then to assign
the planning, discussion, and selection processes to different
bodies.   Those both may be reasonable things to do, but they
has downsides as well up advantages, especially if members of
the community are concerned that the process is being selected
to control outcomes.  But those splitting and assignment
decisions -- decisions that may be the most important of the lot
in terms of long-term effects -- were, AFAICT, made without an
serious and well-publicized attempt to consult the community.
At least for some those who were even a little bit skeptical in
July, suspicion goes up and IAB and RSOC credibility goes down.

At least one short-term consequence is that members of the
community who should be participating in the discussion wonder
if it is all a charade, note the volume of traffic and such
things as the dispute about the list on which the discussions
are held, and tune out.  And others wonder whether that was by
design (whether effective or not).

For the IETF community, the one problem that may be more serious
than the looming deadline of Heather's stepping down in 3 1/2
months is whether the processes to move forward and those
running them are perceived as legitimate and credible.  I think
we are in serious trouble.

So, a suggestion: let's take this as far out of the current
IAB/RSOC structure as we can and put it, at least for a while,
in the hands of someone (or a group of people) for whom the
community has a high degree of trust, trust both to behave
fairly and to focus on the well-being and future of the RFC
Series and the RFC Editor function (rather than being
contaminated by how we got here or suspected of trying to push
other agendas).  There is one obvious person for that role who,
based on community reactions in Montreal at IETF 105 and, for
that matter, at IETF 102, and that is Heather.   So I suggest
that you ask (and, if necessary, plead and beg) Heather to
extend her commitment to the IETF and the RFC Editor function
for an extra six months (or whatever other period she and you
think appropriate).  That should be done with the clear
understanding that her role (at least after December) is to lead
and manage the process of figuring out what we do next and
getting people in place to do the job.  In particular, she
should not be responsible for, or actively involved in, either
the v3 transition or management of the RFC Production Center.  I
wouldn't want that role to include selecting her successor(s)
either, but I would expect her to manage the process of figuring
out how that should be done in consultation with the community.
If she needs an advisory committee, let her select and appoint
whomever she decides she wants -- there are processes I'd prefer
but they all have credibility problems at this stage.

The suggestion above deliberately does not include the word
"contract".  The whole idea behind IASA (carried forward into
IASA2) was that their job was to get things like this that the
community wants done without dragging the community into the
details or, if that is impossible, to explain the problem to the
community.  In particular, I don't care whether the existing
contract is extended with an annex that reflects the paragraph
above (and maybe bits of your original languages or suggestions
from this thread as needed) or a new contract -- I leave that
for Heather (if she is willing to do this at all), the acting
IETF LLC ExedDir, and the LLC Board to sort out.  Were Heather
to come back to the community and suggest that she was willing
to do this but the IETF LLC was unwilling to work in good faith,
I would expect calls for resignations or worse.

If Heather is not willing or able to do this, then I suggest we
go the blue ribbon panel route.  I can't think of a better
mechanism [1] than having the RSOC and IAB appoint that panel,
but you/they should see the selection of the membership of that
panel and its balance as an opportunity to restore some
credibility and no one who has been on either the IAB, IESG,
IAOC or LLC Board in the last two or three years should be
allowed to be appointed.   Given his persistent and constructive
efforts to sort this situation out, I'd be very disappointed if
Mike St. Johns were not part of it.  That panel would have the
same responsibilities I'd like to assign to Heather above --
primarily to manage the process of figuring out how we get out
of this mess and to fill in on strategy issues if absolutely
necessary.  To that end, it would be good to have a few people
on it with a deep understanding of professional publication
strategy (not to be confused with writing a few documents that
grew up to be RFCs) and/or long-term intimate involvement with
RFC Editor strategies and policies.  The RSOC that searched for
an selected Heather the first time would be a reasonable place
to start looking for those people.

Finally, I strongly suggest that the community not hear that we
can't do this because the procedures won't allow it.  We need to
figure out how to make things happen with a maximum of
credibility and trust from the community.  We have precedent for
this sort of thing (and of bringing in outsiders to recent
development who are well-known and trusted in the community in
the way the POISSON process that led to the current IETF
procedure stack and in other situations where we would otherwise
basically be stuck with neither side of an issue trusting the
other side.   Being told that the procedures prevent us from
using a creative and credible approach would, in the current
climate, certainly cause many members of the community that all
of this is about maintaining or expanding leadership body (or
personal) control, power, and/or authority.

best,
   john 

[1] Well, I can, but I'm not aware of a reliable process for
consulting Jon Postel, Joyce Reynolds, or Bob Braden.

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---

From: Sarah Banks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 09:34:35 -0700

Hi John,
	Let me answer inline. SB// with <snips>

> On Sep 13, 2019, at 7:44 AM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:

<snip>

> the RSOC's original proposal.

Speaking for myself, I do not think the SOW as written by Mike holds true for me. You can't beat up the IAB and RSOC for steering the process in some (potential) nefarious way, then effectively do the exact same and ask the community to bless it in the week left of a comment period. The community did not agree at the mic about what to do, or even what we disagreed on as a whole, and so the IAB outlined a plan for giving the community time to do it's thing, but keep docs flowing is something I believe firmly in. With my own community hat on, I WANT that. IMO we clearly need that. And while I haven't yet shared my opinions on what should happen next, cramming it into a weeks review of the SOW is wrong. Sorry. It's very important to me that we agree, or get rough consensus called, and I just don't see how that can happen in a week. I'd argue it already hasn't. We've had a few folks +1 Mike's SOW, but that's hardly indicative of the community as a whole. 

> management, oversight, etc., only with selection of candidates

I accept that this is part of the conversation we need to have. I'm not entirely sure that the RSOC or the IAB has to draft an assessment of our assumptions. I'd have to think about that. I think the community has made assumptions about our assumptions, but either way, I don't know what comes from looking backwards; at first glance, it seems to me that deciding what we want to change, listing those items out, and discussing, seems prudent. Either way, the SOW IMO isn't the place to have that discussion, or make those changes. Keeping things as is, in the process we currently have (roughly), to keep tactical things moving, and then affect change seems to me the fairest way to treat our existing contractors, and address the community's desire for a conversation. That's my personal opinion, I am not speaking for the RSOC.

> details for the series under firm IESG/IAB control and a little

I totally understand where you're coming from, you're not the first person to bring that up. I'll point out that the RSOC did NOT approve that BOF; we were made aware of it pretty much on the eve on it, and the RSOC did not agree to it. I personally did not agree, and perhaps I should have got to the mic and stated so. However, at the time, Heather got to the mic before I even stood up and said a lot of what I would have, far more elegantly. The vast majority of the room agreed, and it was clear the effect was squashed from a community perspective, to me. 

Separately, though, I also understand that part of the issue here is that there's a vein of thought that "she would be replaced by someone who would put compliance to IAB/IESG wishes ahead of the well being of the series..." To me, that's exactly what the community conversations need to cover, as an item on that list I described. If we decide we want fervent independence, then we should say so and agree. But again, the SOW is NOT the place for that conversation today. Being paranoid about it or not, I think we've been incredibly clear in stating that this SOW was about getting someone in to help keep things moving while the larger conversation happened. It's not about some Body at the IETF/IAB/IESG/whatever "stealing" power from the RSE, or diminishing the role, or making it compliant to some group's wishes. I get that we're afraid of that, but frankly, given the hyper sensitive nature of this conversation right now, I don't see how that could happen, short of an outright declaration
  of a "king", in that one of those bodies TELLS the community that it's going that way. even then, I can't imagine that would be pretty. ;) So i get the fear, I worry about it as an item on the list to discuss in the community discussion, but I'm less worried in the SOW because I feel the community is clearly stating it won't stand for that. For what it's worth, I agree. I personally wouldn't want the SOW being used to cede anything from the RSE role, until the community states it's wishes.

> IETF community generally.

Yup, I hear you, and I agree, I see that too. it's incredibly frustrating, and while I haven't been in the IETF as long as (well, Mike, for example! :)) I've never experienced such a distrust before now. But for me, this is why I'm leaning into the notion of the community discussion. It's the most powerful tool we have to figure out the change, and we've said we want it. So let's have it.

<snip>
> to start looking for those people.

This sounds like the kind of feedback that should come into the calls that Heather is currently leading. :) Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to dismiss it or blow it off, but I am trying to be respectful of the process that was outlined and that I believe in, and I don't want to undermine or short circuit the calls that Heather is leading.

> personal) control, power, and/or authority.

OK... I hear you, but I'll point out that the RSOC hasn't made any such statements that I can find; we're not saying because of the rules or not. Kick me if I've got that wrong.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 11:44:01 -0500

On Sep 13, 2019, at 11:34, Sarah Banks <[email-masked]> wrote:
> You can't beat up the IAB and RSOC for steering the process in some (potential) nefarious way, then effectively do the exact same and ask the community to bless it in the week left of a comment period.

The way I am reading this is that you are saying that changes as a result of comments made during the comment period are not expected to change the outcome. Is that what you intended to communicate?

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 11:00:36 -0700

On 9/13/2019 7:44 AM, John C Klensin wrote:

> The difficulty, which several people tried to get a
> commodity items.

John,

The way you phrase it, there is an eminent understanding of the role and
function of the RFC series and the RSE that everybody should agree on,
and you suspect the IAB does not. That why you use the word "understood"
in the quoted text. I think that vocabulary presumes the outcome of the
ongoing discussion. For example, you and several others including Mike
and Brian hold it as obvious that "the RFC series is bigger than the
IETF". That was certainly true in 1981, but I am sure there are people
who don't believe that in 2019 -- and those people are indeed part of
"the community".

You may believe that you have a superior understanding, but the correct
phrasing would be "the question of whether the RSOC (and, to some
extent, the IAB) agrees with my understanding of the role and function
of the RFC Series".

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Sarah Banks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 11:05:33 -0700

Erm... no...

I'm saying you can't accuse folks of jury rigging the process with their wants and desires but then do the same. The SOW proposal was to cover the tactical, NOT slide in how someone wants to see the reporting structure work. How and where the RSE reports to should be a part of the community conversation, and I'm asserting that you can't have the community conversation by providing a new SOW with a week left on the comment period. I'm asserting that the conversation will take longer than a conversation, and that it should be a part of the broader scope of what and how we want things to change.

Thanks,
Sarah

> On Sep 13, 2019, at 9:44 AM, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 14:32:42 -0500

> I'm saying you can't accuse folks of jury rigging the process with their wants and desires but then do the same. The SOW proposal was to cover the tactical, NOT slide in how someone wants to see th…

Okay, I understand where you are coming from.  That said, effectively what you are saying is that Mike’s proposal can’t happen, and that we need to get rough consensus on your proposal.  Given the pressing nature of the situation, I understand why you are maintaining that position; however, it is a fairly unfortunate position to have to take.  Is there consensus for this position?   Who is calling consensus?

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2019 08:38:47 +1200

On 14-Sep-19 07:32, Ted Lemon wrote:
> On Sep 13, 2019, at 1:05 PM, Sarah Banks <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Actually, I'm not understanding why the RSOC couldn't just decide it prefers Mike's proposal as a simpler way of obtaining the desired goal of an acting RSE to keep things moving along without mortgaging the future. I don't see that violating the RSOC's role, in these unusual circumstances.

As for who calls consensus, this raises the old question of what is the RFC community of interest and who speaks for it. But in practice, it's the RSOC as the IAB's delegate that has been doing so for previous RSE appointments.

    Brian

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 23:19:23 +0200

On 2019-09-13 22:38, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>>> I'm saying you can't accuse folks of jury rigging the process
>>> with their wants and desires but then do the same. The SOW
>>> proposal was to cover the tactical, NOT slide in how someone
>>> wants to see the reporting structure work. How and where the RSE
>>> reports to should be a part of the community conversation, and
>>> I'm asserting that you can't have the community conversation by
>>> providing a new SOW with a week left on the comment period. I'm
>>> asserting that the conversation will take longer than a
>>> conversation, and that it should be a part of the broader scope
>>> of what and how we want things to change.
>> 
>> Okay, I understand where you are coming from.  That said,
>> effectively what you are saying is that Mike’s proposal can’t
>> happen, and that we need to get rough consensus on your proposal.
>> Given the pressing nature of the situation, I understand why you
>> are maintaining that position; however, it is a fairly unfortunate
>> position to have to take.  Is there consensus for this position?
>> Who is calling consensus?
> 
> Actually, I'm not understanding why the RSOC couldn't just decide it
> prefers Mike's proposal as a simpler way of obtaining the desired
> goal of an acting RSE to keep things moving along without mortgaging
> the future. I don't see that violating the RSOC's role, in these
> unusual circumstances.

That sounds right to me.

	Henrik

> As for who calls consensus, this raises the old question of what is
> the RFC community of interest and who speaks for it. But in practice,
> it's the RSOC as the IAB's delegate that has been doing so for
> previous RSE appointments.
> 
> Brian
>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2019 18:21:06 -0400

Sarah,

My apologies, but my frustration level with aspects of this
process was getting sufficiently high that I needed to take some
time off lest I say something offensive or that I would
otherwise regret.  In addition, I had a couple of standards
track documents in the IESG's processing queue and needed to
give them priority.

Ignoring (and eliding) things that I can remember others
covering and some that seem completely OBE, inline below...

--On Friday, September 13, 2019 09:34 -0700 Sarah Banks
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> nowhere, I think his draft is a better starting point than
>> your/ the RSOC's original proposal.

> Speaking for myself, I do not think the SOW as written by Mike
> holds true for me. You can't beat up the IAB and RSOC for
> steering the process in some (potential) nefarious way, then
> effectively do the exact same and ask the community to bless
> it in the week left of a comment period. The community did not
> agree at the mic about what to do, or even what we disagreed
> on as a whole, and so the IAB outlined a plan for giving the
> community time to do it's thing, but keep docs flowing is
> something I believe firmly in. With my own community hat on, I
> WANT that. IMO we clearly need that. And while I haven't yet
> shared my opinions on what should happen next, cramming it
> into a weeks review of the SOW is wrong. Sorry. It's very
> important to me that we agree, or get rough consensus called,
> and I just don't see how that can happen in a week. I'd argue
> it already hasn't. We've had a few folks +1 Mike's SOW, but
> that's hardly indicative of the community as a whole. 

Others have commented about part of this.   Your line of
reasoning above essentially makes a call for community comments
useless because someone (or a committee, board, or other group)
can always say "we made a proposal, there wasn't very clear and
obvious support for something else, and therefore we are going
with our proposal".  A few years ago I would have argued this
was unnecessary, but it may be time that the IETF considers a
rule that, if a proposal originates with a given body, that body
is not allowed to be the determiner of consensus on that
proposal or alternatives to it.

Equally important and reinforced by experience in the last few
weeks, we end up with late review --not only in the last week
but even after the Last Call on a document ends-- and, however
inconvenient that is, we consider them on their merits rather
than discarding them because someone didn't make them early
enough.  Even later, IESG members can (and often do) show up
with comments within the 24 hours (or much later) before a
telechat and require that the issues raised be considered.  So,
as a community, we do what you suggest is unreasonable and do it
all the time.

I recognize that we are in a bit of a crisis here and that you
need to keep the documents flowing.  But I'm not sure that is
much different from a technical specification on whose approval
organizations and other work are depending getting held up
because of late comments from the community and the IESG.  And
messing this up in a way that reduces the quality of the
documents coming out of that flow wouldn't be wise either.
Remember that the RSOC and IAB do have a choice in this: the
main thing that really requires critical leadership in the next
few months is the transition to v3.  It would be sad to put that
process on hold, but probably sadder to mess it up for the long
term by putting people and a structure in place that cannot make
competent long-term decisions the community will be comfortable
with.  I'm not suggesting doing that; I'm only suggesting that
the RSOC and IAB should not pretend it is not an option.

>...
Because I've been attacked recently for writing notes that are
too long, I'm just going to stop here rather than addressing the
rest of your comments on my comments.  I do want to point out
one thing that I think others have said as well -- the SOW (the
RSOC's, Mike's, or a different one) and whatever process follows
it had best find someone with sufficient knowledge, and
knowledge-based opinions, to be able to do the job.  Otherwise,
the decisions that need to be made on a day-to-day basis are
just not going to happen (at least consistently) unless they are
actually made by the RSOC or IAB by micromanaging.  But, if you
get someone with that level of knowledge and the community
discussions lead to the conclusion that the job description and,
hence the person appointed, were wrong, you would be headed into
a management mess of very severe proportions with a high risk of
the appointee working in perfectly good faith but in a direction
to which the community is opposed.   So I know you are in a
hurry and I understand and sympathize with the reasons, but I'm
not sure that justifies the kind of haste that could lead to an
even worse situation.

best,
   john

---

From: Sarah Banks <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 13:15:55 -0700

Hi John,
	Please see inline.

<snip>

> proposal or alternatives to it.

Erm? I don't see what your comment has to do with Mike's line of reasoning, or mine, which you're calling out. Let me be clear. I object to Mike shoehorning in how he wants the world to work into an SOW that was meant to cover the tactical. You can jump up and down all day long about how the process is being run (that we want to have someone temporarily run the tactical show while the community decides what it wants) but given that's how the RSOC was marching, I cannot support shoving what you want into an SOW. We'd either end up with dozens of SOWs written by numerous people articulating what they want (and then how does any reader wrangle that?) or you short cut the process, which might not be Mike's intent, but I don't appreciate. We clearly articulated the approach, which isn't coming at the tail end of some process - it was discussed on stage at the plenary of IETF105, and is loosely based on what Heather herself proposed. 

> as a community, we do what you suggest is unreasonable and do it

OK... we knew the SOW was coming, and it covers exactly what was proposed on stage. Frankly, you're making my point for NOT supporting Mike's SOW as written - in my mind, it's 2 pieces. First, how he wants to see the RSE role to fit into the org, and then the actual components of the role (albeit pared down). Even more reason to NOT approve something huge like this in a <n> week comment period without the preceding discussion. So I return back to my original comment, that the RSOC is trucking to the process as previously outlined in email and explicitly NOT shortcutting the process or truncating how/when the community can weigh in.

> the RSOC and IAB should not pretend it is not an option.

OK... I see no reason to put the v3 format work on hold though. Why should it wait while we figure out what we want to evolve the RSE role to? We aren't pretending it's not an option; we're saying it's not the option we're proposing.

> not sure that justifies the kind of haste that could lead to an

FWIW, the RSOC and IAB haven't been micromanaging this in the past, and while I may not be on the RSOC forever, I'd hope we'd never see that happening. No one likes being micromanaged, despite the need for managing. We may want the best of the best, we may not get what we wanted, but I have to assume we'll hire the best we can, and if we can 't find someone who's acceptable in the role, we'll have to circle back to the IETF and let them know that, when we get there.

Thanks
Sarah