| Network Working Group | B. Leiba |
| Internet-Draft | Huawei Technologies |
| Updates: 3777 (if approved) | July 31, 2012 |
| Intended status: Best Current Practice | |
| Expires: January 30, 2013 |
Update to RFC 3777 to Clarify Nominating Committee Eligibility of IETF Leadership
draft-leiba-3777upd-eligibility-00
RFC 3777 specifies that "sitting members" of the IAB and IESG "may not volunteer to serve on the nominating commitee". Since that document was written the IAOC was formed, and that body is not covered by RFC 3777. There is also uncertainty about whether ex-officio members and liaisons are included as "sitting members". This document clarifies those situations.
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RFC 3777 [RFC3777] defines the nominating committee process. One of the key points in the process and in the selection of the NomCom is that the IETF wants to avoid having its top leadership be self-selecting: the leaders should not be the ones who choose the leaders. The selection of the NomCom, therefore, excludes those individuals who are in top leadership positions currently.
That said, it would be bad to eliminate too many people who are in good positions to understand well the IETF process -- those individuals will give important perspective to the NomCom and will help ensure that the people it selects for the leadership roles will be qualified to do those jobs. There's an advantage, then, to excluding only those necessary to achieve the "not self-selecting" goal, and no others.
RFC 3777 specifies that "sitting members" of the IAB and IESG "may not volunteer to serve on the nominating committee". Since that document was written the IAOC was formed, and that body is not covered by RFC 3777. There is also uncertainty about whether ex-officio members liaisons, and such are included as "sitting members". This document clarifies those situations, with the understanding that the intent of RFC 3777 was to exclude those currently in IETF leadership positions, or who would otherwise have a conflict of interest, from voting on the selection of the new leadership.
This document also excludes individuals who are directly paid for their work with the IETF, and who, therefore, have a direct personal financial incentive in the selection of the leadership boards. In practice, those people are unlikely to volunteer for the NomCom anyway, so this addition makes little practical change.
In order to allow the largest reasonable list of potential NomCom members, we do not want to exclude those at lower levels of IETF leadership. In particular, this document does *not* exclude participation from working group chairs, IRTF research group chairs, members of directorates and special review teams, and members of other advisory bodies such as the RSOC.
The following two paragraphs replace RFC 3777, Section 4, paragraph 15 in its entirety.
15.1 Members of the Internet Society Board of Trustees and sitting members of the IAB, the IESG, and the IAOC, including members in ex-officio positions, and not including liaisons, may not volunteer to serve as voting members of the nominating committee.
15.2 People serving in the Secretariat and the RFC Editor may not volunteer to serve as voting members of the nominating committee.
This is a procedural document, and is entirely unrelated to security.
No IANA actions are requested by this document, and the RFC Editor is asked to remove this section before publication.
| [RFC3777] | Galvin, J., "IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 3777, June 2004. |