Internet DRAFT - draft-arkko-iasa2-trust-rationale
draft-arkko-iasa2-trust-rationale
Internet Engineering Task Force J. Arkko
Internet-Draft Ericsson
Intended status: Informational June 27, 2018
Expires: December 29, 2018
Discussion of the IASA 2.0 Changes as They Relate to the IETF Trust
draft-arkko-iasa2-trust-rationale-00
Abstract
The IASA 2.0 changes will have an impact in the IETF Trust as well,
because members of the IET Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC)
IAOC have also served as trustees of the IETF Trust. A proposal for
a minimal change regarding this has been provided separately in
[I-D.arkko-iasa2-trust-update].
This companion memo provides some background on the details of the
current IETF Trust arrangements, explains the effect of the rules in
the founding documents during a transition to a new arrangement, and
provides a rationale for the update.
This memo is provided only for discussion.
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on December 29, 2018.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. General Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Changing the Way Trustees Are Selected . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
The IASA 2.0 changes will have an impact in the IETF Trust as well
[RFC4071] [RFC4371] [I-D.hall-iasa2-struct]. This is because members
of the IET Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) IAOC have also
served as trustees of the IETF Trust. A proposal for a minimal
change regarding this has been provided separately in draft-arkko-
iasa2-trust-update.
This companion memo provides some background on the details of the
current IETF Trust arrangements, explains the effect of the rules in
the founding documents during a transition to a new arrangement, and
provides a rationale for the update.
This memo is provided only for discussion. There is no intention to
publish this memo as an RFC.
2. Background
The purpose of the IETF Trust is to acquire, hold, maintain, and
license certain existing and future intellectual property and other
property used in connection with the administration of the IETF
[RFC4371]. The intellectual property is, for instance, rights that
the IETF contributors grant for text in RFCs and Internet Drafts.
The IETF Trust also manages trademarks and domains such as "IETF" and
ietf.org. The IETF Trust is also serving the broader Internet
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community by holding domains and trademarks associated with IANA
[RFC7979].
The IETF Trust is a legal entity, registered in the Commonwealth of
Virginia [Trust-FD].
Currently, the members of the IAOC are also serving as trustees of
the IETF Trust. The founding documents specify persons eligible to
become trustees as having to be then-current members of the IAOC
[Trust-FD]. The documents also specify that if for any reason there
are fewer than three individuals serving as trustees, then the IESG,
or the IESG's successor as the leadership of the IETF, shall appoint
one or more individuals to serve in a temporary capacity as
Trustee(s) until eligible persons can be found.
In the current system there are eight IAOC members. They are named
by the IETF Nominations Committee or NomCom (two members), IESG (one
member), IAB (one member), Internet Society Board of Trustees (one
member), along with three ex-officio members via their roles as IETF
Chair, Internet Society CEO, or IAB Chair. In addition, the IETF
Administrative Director (IAD) serves also as one of the trustees.
3. General Approach
There are two basic approaches to resolving the issue with the
trustees, if the IAOC ceases to exist. One could imagine merging all
IETF Trust functions in the new IASA structure and under the planned
new legal entity. This memo advocates a second approach where the
IETF Trust is kept independent.
The rationale for advocating the second approach is in part to avoid
causing too much change for the IETF Trust at a time when the IETF
administrative structure is ongoing major change. And, perhaps more
importantly, the IETF Trust and other administrative IETF process are
quite different. While very important, the IETF Trust is a very low
activity entity where changes, if any, are minimal and gradual.
There are no pressing issues, and the organisation serves the broader
Internet community than perhaps the day-to-day and more IETF
meetings-focused other parts of IASA.
4. Changing the Way Trustees Are Selected
At the time the trustees served both the IETF Trust and the IAOC,
many of the requirements for naming a particular group of people were
driven by the IAOC's requirements. For the IETF Trust in the new
model, some of those arrangements can be rethought, both in terms of
the number and source of the trustees, as well as the desired
qualifications and length of terms.
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Several options are possible, of course. A newly designed naming
process could be devised. This memo argues for relatively limited
change, however, largely on the basis of the IETF Trust arrangements
generally working well, and on the relatively modest expected time
commitments combined with the need for very careful management of the
assets.
As a result, a smaller group of trustees appears sufficient.
In addition, the terms for the trustees selected from the IETF
community could be set to longer than the two year period typical of
other IETF bodies.
One could continue the practice of having the chairs and CEOs from
IETF, IAB, and Internet Society be trustees as well, but this may not
be necessary. In general, the tasks of the IETF Trust are well
defined, and while there is a need for coordination, it does not need
to be at the level of chairs or CEOs.
Given all this, one approach to the appointments is to have trustees
appointed by the Nominations Committee, IESG, and Internet Society
Board of Trustees (or the new legal entity, but the Internet Society
is perhaps more focused on the broad use of the IETF Trust assets and
not merely administrative aspects).
If the same principles continue to be used as are used in today's
appointments, then appointments performed by the Nominations
Committee need to be confirmed by another entity, which could be, for
instance, either the IESG or the IAB.
5. Transition
When new entity for IETF administration is set up, at some point the
IAOC will be discontinued. Fortunately, there's no pressing need to
change all the components at the same time. As discussed above
(Section 2), the IESG holds the ability to continue to name trustees.
Once the changes suggested in Section 4 are in place, the IETF Trust
will have management nominated in the usual manner, and the
exceptional IESG process is no longer needed.
6. Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank members of the earlier IASA 2.0 design
team, as well as Alissa Cooper, Ted Hardie, Andrew Sullivan, Brian
Carpenter, Lucy Lynch, and John Levine for interesting discussions in
this problem space.
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7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC4071] Austein, R., Ed. and B. Wijnen, Ed., "Structure of the
IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA)", BCP 101,
RFC 4071, DOI 10.17487/RFC4071, April 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4071>.
[RFC4371] Carpenter, B., Ed. and L. Lynch, Ed., "BCP 101 Update for
IPR Trust", BCP 101, RFC 4371, DOI 10.17487/RFC4371,
January 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4371>.
[RFC7437] Kucherawy, M., Ed., "IAB, IESG, and IAOC Selection,
Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the
Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 7437,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7437, January 2015, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7437>.
7.2. Informative References
[I-D.arkko-iasa2-trust-update]
Arkko, J. and T. Hardie, "Update to the Selection of
Trustees for the IETF Trust", draft-arkko-iasa2-trust-
update-00 (work in progress), June 2018.
[I-D.hall-iasa2-struct]
Haberman, B., Hall, J., and J. Livingood, "Proposed
Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity
(IASA), Version 2.0 (for Discussion)", draft-hall-
iasa2-struct-04 (work in progress), June 2018.
[RFC5378] Bradner, S., Ed. and J. Contreras, Ed., "Rights
Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust", BCP 78, RFC 5378,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5378, November 2008, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc5378>.
[RFC7979] Lear, E., Ed. and R. Housley, Ed., "Response to the IANA
Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) Request
for Proposals on the IANA Protocol Parameters Registries",
RFC 7979, DOI 10.17487/RFC7979, August 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7979>.
[Trust-FD]
IETF Trust, , "Founding Documents", February 2014
(https://trustee.ietf.org/founding-documents.html).
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Author's Address
Jari Arkko
Ericsson
Kauniainen 02700
Finland
Email: jari.arkko@piuha.net
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