[Internal-cg] IETF assessment

[Lynn St.Amour]

Hi Jari,

if I may add a couple of points to your note, while waiting to hear from Milton :-),

On Jan 30, 2015, at 4:09 AM, Jari Arkko <jari.arkko at piuha.net> wrote:

> Milton, others,
> 
> I wanted to get back to this topic since we did not have time to cover
> it on the call.
> 
> First, while I make some observations below, it is not so much about 
> trying to suggest any changes to a particular assessment. From my 
> perspective the assessments are primarily an internal tool for the ICG 
> and may come from multiple people. There is an official result that the
> ICG needs to agree on, but it is the separate conclusion on whether
> we need to ask something from that community or not. Does this
> view of the process make sense, or do you want to do something else?

Assuming this was addressed to all the ICG, and I do think it would be good to hear what everyone thinks; this was my understanding of the purpose of our assessments.  The most basic tenets of the IANA transition were 1 - that the work was going to be done in the operating communities and, 2 - that there were existing (and fairly long-standing) processes in place which were known to and had been vetted by those communities allowing them to arrive at their proposals.  I believe these two things are essential to the credibility of the overall transition; and certainly preferable to making up new processes, especially as we are talking about on-going operations.

> On the call on Wednesday I emphasised that the community opinion
> needs to direct what we do rather than an individual (e.g., someone 
> who sends ICG a comment) getting to decide. 
> 
> But back to the IETF assessment. I don’t want to go into details; suffice 
> it to say that each item highlighted in the assessment has been extensively
> discussed and weighed in the community, and an informed decision was 
> made.  And as noted, there will be further steps - I already promised to 
> provide more useful information in one case, there might be some
> cases where alignment between different proposals leads to further work,
> and our legal counsel and other entities are working on contracts with
> the direction that the IETF community has given us.

Jari, Milton, if I might also add that it is the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) that has the responsibility to address/negotiate legal questions/contracts on behalf of the IETF, and not the IANAPLAN WG.   

The IAOC does this based on specific direction from the IETF community/WG's, etc. - all openly debated and communicated.   While some of the meetings with legal counsel may not be public, quite a number of the legal implications are discussed in IETF WG's, etc. with legal counsel present.
 
> But I do want to bring up one item - openness. To be clear, our process
> has been open for anyone, including for instance, allowing anyone joining 
> all discussions without prior arrangement and being taken into account in 
> forming the group opinion, having discussions on mailing lists that 
> are open, having remote attendance options in our meetings, all
> discussions from meetings continuing on the list, and so on. Anybody can
> have a say, and not merely observe. Of course, coming to a consensus 
> (even rough) in a large community requires broad agreement. That 
> everyone is invited to participate does not mean that everyone is 100% 
> satisfied with the outcome in all cases. And everyone gets to take part in
> the process based on their perspective and background. In a community-
> driven organisation, the leadership doesn't get to favour any particular
> perspective over others.

and to say it even more directly, the leadership does not hold any special position or sway over a consensus outcome.  Inclusiveness means that anyone gets to take part in the process, no matter what values they hold or experience they have.  Leadership doesn't state the parameters.  In a community-driven process, it is those that participate that choose what value to place on contributions, and this is what drives consensus.

Hope this helps.  Milton, I know you understand alot of this, but I thought it might be helpful to those a bit less familiar with the IETF processes.  

Best,
Lynn

 
> Please be very careful in setting the bar for open and inclusive
> processes here.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jari
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Internal-cg mailing list
> Internal-cg at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-cg