Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-iasa2-struct
draft-ietf-iasa2-struct
IASA2 B. Haberman
Internet-Draft Johns Hopkins University
Intended status: Informational J. Hall
Expires: March 11, 2019 CDT
J. Livingood
Comcast
September 07, 2018
Record of Proposed Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity
(IASA), Version 2.0
draft-ietf-iasa2-struct-06
Abstract
The IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) was originally
established in 2005. In the 13 years from 2005 to 2018, the needs of
the IETF have evolved in ways that require changes to its
administrative structure. The purpose of this document is to outline
a proposed new "IASA 2.0" structure and to document the decisions
made by the IASA2 Working Group over the past 20 months in developing
the proposed structure. The proposal is for the work of the IETF's
administrative and fundraising tasks to be conducted by a new
administrative organization, the IETF Administration Limited
Liability Company ("LLC"). Under the proposal, the Internet
Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) will be eliminated, and its
oversight and advising functions transferred to the new LLC Board.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on March 11, 2019.
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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
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Scope Limitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Operating Agreement with the Internet Society . . . . . . 4
3. Key Differences from the IASA 1.0 Structure . . . . . . . . . 4
4. IETF Administration LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. General LLC Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2. LLC Working Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.3. LLC Board Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.4. IETF Executive Director and Staff Responsibilities . . . 8
4.5. Board Design Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.6. Board Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.7. LLC-Appointed Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.8. Recruiting LLC Board Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.9. LLC Board Director Term Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.10. LLC Board Director Limit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.11. Staggered Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.12. LLC Board Director Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.13. Filling a LLC Board Director Vacancy . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.14. Interim Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.15. First Full Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.16. Board Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. LLC Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1. Conflict of Interest Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.2. Other Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3. Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6. Quorum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7. Board Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
8. Fundraising Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9. Transition Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9.1. Initial Tasks of the LLC Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
10. Three-Year Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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11. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
12. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1. Introduction
The IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) was originally
established in 2005. In the 13 years from 2005 to 2018, the needs of
the IETF have evolved in ways that require changes to its
administrative structure. The purpose of this document is to outline
a proposed new "IASA 2.0" structure. The proposal is for the work of
the IETF's administrative and fundraising tasks to be conducted by a
new administrative organization, the IETF Administration Limited
Liability Company ("LLC"). Under the proposal, the Internet
Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) will be eliminated, and its
oversight and advising functions transferred to the new LLC Board.
This document explores all of the details involved in the proposal.
[I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs] discusses the challenges facing the
current structure as well as several options for reorganizing the
IETF's administration under different legal structures. This
document outlines how such an organization will be structured and
describes how the organization will fit together with existing and
new IETF community structures.
This document outlines the high level details of the planned "IASA
2.0" arrangement, some of which are dependent on the choice of legal
structure. The point of this document has been to solicit community
input about how to address the challenges identified in
[I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs], and included much debate on the IASA2
mailing list and the IASA2 working group meetings at IETF 101
[ietf101-slides] and IETF 102 [ietf102-slides]. Changes will
subsequently be required in a replacement of RFC 4071 (BCP 101) and
RFC 4371, which are of course based on IETF community input and the
work in the IASA2 working group.
The proposal in this document is to transfer most of the
responsibilities that RFC 4071 currently assigns to the Internet
Administrative Director (IAD) and Internet Society (ISOC) to the
newly created LLC. The IAOC will be eliminated, and its oversight
and advising functions transferred to the LLC Board. It will be the
job of LLC to meet the administrative needs of the IETF and ensure
that LLC and IASA 2.0 meet the needs of the IETF community.
Eliminating the IAOC means that there will need to be another way for
trustees to be appointed for the IETF Trust. The details of how this
is done is outside the scope of this document.
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2. Scope Limitation
The document does not propose any changes to anything related to the
oversight or steering of the standards process as currently conducted
by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) and Internet
Architecture Board (IAB), the appeals chain, the process for making
and confirming IETF and IAB appointments, the IETF Nominations
Committee (NomCom), the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), or
ISOC's memberships in or support of other organizations.
If the community decides to make changes to its administrative
process along the lines outlined in this document, normative changes
to IETF processes will need to be documented in one or more
additional RFCs. Additional legal documents (e.g., certificate of
formation, operating agreement, transition and shared services
agreement) relating to the legal entity would provide the official,
legal definitions of processes, roles, etc. Section 9 lists some
initial thoughts about transition; publishing a detailed transition
plan would likely also be useful.
2.1. Operating Agreement with the Internet Society
The Operating Agreement (OA) is also out of scope for this document.
The OA is being developed between the IETF and ISOC and is expected
to include all critical terms, while still enabling maximum
unilateral flexibility for the LLC Board. Thus, it is anticipated
that the OA will include only basic details about how the Board
manages itself or manages LLC staff, so that the LLC Board has
flexibility to make changes without amending the OA. The LLC Board
can independently develop policy or procedures documents that fill
gaps.
3. Key Differences from the IASA 1.0 Structure
o The IAOC and IAD roles defined in RFC 4071 are eliminated.
o The ISOC and IAD responsibilities described in RFC 4071 are
assigned to a new organization, IETF Administration LLC.
o The Board of Directors of the LLC - formally a multi-member
"manager" of the LLC on behalf of ISOC - will assume the oversight
responsibilities of the IAOC.
o The Board of the LLC shall be more focused on strategy and
oversight, with the IETF Executive Director and their team in
charge of day-to-day operations.
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4. IETF Administration LLC
4.1. General LLC Responsibilities
The LLC will be established to provide administrative support to the
IETF. It will have no authority over the standards development
activities of the IETF.
The proposed responsibilities of the LLC are:
o Operations. The LLC is responsible for supporting the ongoing
operations of the IETF, including meetings and non-meeting
activities.
o Finances. The LLC is responsible for managing the IETF's finances
and budget.
o Fundraising. The LLC is responsible for raising money on behalf
of the IETF.
o Compliance. The LLC is responsible for establishing and enforcing
policies to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations,
and rules.
The manner by which these responsibilities under the LLC are
organized is intended to address the problems described in Sections
3.1.1., 3.1.2, and 3.1.3 of [I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs].
Specifically, this is intended to bring greater clarity around roles,
responsibilities, representation, decision-making, and authority.
In addition, by having the LLC manage the IETF's finances and conduct
the IETF's fundraising, confusion about who is responsible for
representing the IETF to sponsors and who directs the uses of
sponsorship funds will be eliminated. Finally, having the LLC reside
in a defined, distinct legal entity, and taking responsibility for
operations, will enable the organization to execute its own contracts
without the need for review and approval by ISOC.
4.2. LLC Working Principles
The LLC will be expected to conduct its work according to the
following proposed principles:
o Transparency. The LLC will keep the IETF community informed about
its work and will engage with the community to obtain consensus-
based community input on key issues and otherwise as needed. As
discussed in [ietf101-slides], whatever doesn't have a specific
justification for being kept confidential, should be made public.
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There must exist a public list of confidential items, describing
the nature of the information and the reason for confidentiality.
o Responsiveness to the community. The LLC will act consistently
with the documented consensus of the IETF community, to be
responsive to the community's needs, and adapt its decisions in
response to consensus-based community feedback.
o Diligence. The LLC will act responsibly so as to minimize risks
to IETF participants and to the future of the IETF as a whole,
such as financial risks.
The transparency and responsiveness principles are designed to
address the concern outlined in Section 3.3 of
[I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs] about the need for improved timeliness
of sharing of information and decisions and seeking community
comments. The issue of increased transparency was important
throughout the IASA 2.0 process, with little to no dissent. It was
recognized that there will naturally be a confidentiality requirement
about some aspects of hotel contracting, personnel matters, and other
narrow areas.
4.3. LLC Board Responsibilities
The LLC Board will be responsible for conducting oversight of LLC's
execution of its responsibilities, as described in Section 4.1. They
have duties of loyalty, care, and good faith. This includes the
responsibility to:
o provide strategic direction for the LLC to the IETF Executive
Director;
o hire, supervise, and manage the employment of the role of the IETF
Executive Director of the LLC, including tasks such as hiring,
termination, performance review, amendment of employment terms,
the award of compensation and other requisite employment benefits
or decisions;
o adopting any employee benefit plans;
o approving any changes to the LLC governance structure;
o exercising a fiduciary duty to ensure that LLC has the financial
and business stability that it needs to be able to meet the needs
of the IETF, including adopting an annual budget, and as necessary
incurring any debt or making other financial arrangements;
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o approving or entering into agreements that meet a significant
materiality threshold;
o exercising a legal duty to ensure that the LLC complies with any
applicable tax and other laws;
o ensuring that LLC is run in a manner that is transparent and
accountable to the IETF community;
o recruit new Directors, for consideration in all of the various
appointment processes.
The Board will be an oversight body, with responsibilities limited to
those listed above. It will not directly conduct any of the IETF's
administrative work, which is the day-to-day job of the IETF
Executive Director at their team.
The role of the LLC Board will be to ensure that the strategy and
conduct of LLC is consistent with the IETF's needs - both its
concrete needs and its needs for transparency and accountability.
The Board is not intended to directly define the IETF's needs; to the
extent that is required, the IETF community should document its needs
in consensus-based RFCs (e.g., as the community is aiming to do in
[I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process]) and provide more
detailed input via consultations with the LLC Board (such as takes
place on email discussion lists or at IETF meetings).
As part of the responsibilities outlined above the Board shall work
to ensure that LLC will:
o Act consistently with ISOC's 501(c)(3) status;
o Provide accurate financial statements to ISOC on a timely basis;
o Prepare its financial reports in accordance with generally
accepted accounting principles;
o Provide assistance to help facilitate ISOC's tax compliance,
including but not limited to assistance related to preparing the
Form 990 and responding to any IRS questions and audits;
o Obtain appropriate insurance, including commercial general
liability insurance with appropriate limits;
o Implement risk management and compliance processes in a manner
consistent with industry norms.
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The description below outlines the composition of the LLC Board,
selection of LLC Board Directors, and related details.
4.4. IETF Executive Director and Staff Responsibilities
The LLC shall be led by an IETF Executive Director chosen by the
Board. The IETF Executive Director will be responsible for managing
the day-to-day operations of the LLC, including hiring staff to
perform various operational functions. The IETF Executive Director
and any staff may be employees or independent contractors.
Allowing for the division of responsibilities among multiple staff
members and contractors should hopefully address some of the concerns
raised in Section 3.2 (Lack of Resources) and Section 3.4 (Funding/
Operating Model Mismatch and Rising Costs) of
[I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs].
Based on the amount of work currently undertaken by the IAD and
others involved in the IETF administration who are not currently in
contracted roles, it is anticipated that the IETF Executive Director
may need to hire multiple additional staff members. For example,
there will likely be a need for resources to manage fundraising, to
manage the various contractors that are engaged to fulfill the IETF's
administrative needs, and to support outreach and communications.
The IETF currently benefits from the use of contractors for
accounting, finance, meeting planning, administrative assistance,
legal counsel, tools, and web site support, as well as other services
related to the standards process (RFC Editor and IANA). The IETF
budget currently reflects specific support from ISOC for
communications and fundraising as well as some general support for
accounting, finance, legal, and other services. The division of
responsibilities between staff and contractors will be at the
discretion of the IETF Executive Director and his or her staff.
The IETF has a long history of community involvement in the execution
of certain administrative functions, in particular development of
IETF tools, the NOC's operation of the meeting network, and some
outreach and communications activities conducted by the EDU and
Mentoring Directorate. The LLC staff would be expected to respect
the IETF community's wishes about community involvement in these and
other functions going forward as long as the staff feels that they
can meet the otherwise-stated needs of the community. Establishing
the framework to allow the LLC to staff each administrative function
as appropriate may require the IETF community to document its
consensus expectations in areas where no documentation currently
exists (see Section 9).
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In summary, the IETF Executive Director, with support from the team
that they alone direct and lead, will be responsible for:
o Developing and refining an annual budget and other strategic
financial planning documents at the direction of the LLC Board.
o Executing on the annual budget, including reporting to the LLC
Board regularly with forecasts and actual performance to budget.
o Hiring and/or contracting the necessary resources to meet their
goals, within the defined limits of their authority and within the
approved budget. This includes managing and leading any such
resources, including performing regular performance reviews.
o Following the pre-approval guidelines set forth by the LLC Board
for contracts or other decisions that have financial costs that
exceed a certain threshold of significance. Such threshold will
be set reasonably high so that the need for such approvals is
infrequent and only occurs when something is truly significant or
otherwise exceptional. It is important to ensure that the IETF
Executive Director is sufficiently empowered to perform their job
on a day to day basis, being held accountable for meeting high
level goals rather than micromanaged.
o Regularly updating the LLC Board on operations and other notable
issues as reasonable and appropriate.
o Ensuring that all staff and/or other resources comply with any
applicable policies established or approved by the LLC Board, such
as ethics guidelines and/or a code of conduct.
4.5. Board Design Goals
A goal of this proposed Board composition is to balance the need for
the LLC to be accountable to the IETF community with the need for
this Board to have the expertise necessary to oversee a small non-
profit corporation. The Board is smaller than the current IAOC and
the other leadership bodies of the IETF, in part to keep the Board
focused on its rather limited set of strategic responsibilities as
noted in Section 4.3.
This board structure, with limited strategic responsibilities noted
in Section 4.3 and limited size, together with the staff
responsibilities noted in Section 4.4, is designed to overcome the
challenges described in Section 3.1.4 of [I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs]
concerning oversight. This establishes a clear line of oversight
over staff performance: the Board oversees the IETF Executive
Director's performance and has actual legal authority to remove a
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non-performing IETF Executive Director. The IETF Executive Director
is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the LLC.
Finally, the Board would be expected to operate transparently, to
further address the concern raised in Section 3.3 of
[I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs]. The default transparency rule arrived
at during the IASA 2.0 design process is detailed above in in
Section 4.2. The Board will need to establish how it will meet that
commitment.
4.6. Board Composition
There shall be a minimum of 5 directors, expandable to 6 or 7.
o 1 IETF Chair or delegate selected by the IESG
o 1 Appointed by the ISOC Board of Trustees
o 3 Selected by the IETF NomCom, confirmed by the IESG
o Up to 2 Appointed by the LLC board itself, on an as needed basis,
confirmed by the IESG
4.7. LLC-Appointed Directors
As noted above, a maximum of two Directors may be appointed by the
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.
The appointment of a LLC Board-appointed Director requires a 2/3rd-
majority vote of the Directors then in office, and the appointee
shall take office immediately upon appointment. The term of each
appointment shall be designated by the Board, with the maximum term
being three years, or until their earlier resignation, removal or
death. 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 4.9.
4.8. Recruiting LLC Board Directors
The LLC Board itself should take an active role in recruiting
potential new Directors, regardless of the process that may be used
to appoint them. In particular, the NomCom is primarily focused on
considering requirements expressed by the Board and others, reviewing
community feedback on candidates, conducting candidate interviews,
and ultimately appointing Directors. The LLC Board and others can
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recruit potential Directors and get them into the consideration
process of the NomCom or other appointing bodies.
4.9. LLC Board Director Term Length
The term length for a Director shall be three years in length. The
exceptions to this guideline will be for the terms for some Directors
during the first full formation of the LLC Board in order to
establish staggered terms and for any appointments to fill a vacancy.
The final exception is if a Director role is occupied by the IETF
Chair ex officio, since that person's term length is governed instead
by the term lengths established in [RFC7437] (BCP10), Section 3.4.
4.10. LLC Board Director Limit
A director may serve no more than two consecutive terms, with at
least one full term prior to the start of any additional terms. An
exception is if a Director role is occupied by the IETF Chair ex
officio, since that person's service is governed instead by the term
lengths established in [RFC7437] (BCP10), Section 3.4.
An exception to the two consecutive term rule is for an LLC-appointed
Director. For such a Director, they may serve only one term via this
appointment method, after which any subsequent terms would be occur
via other appointment or selection processes (such as via the NomCom
process).
Lastly, partial terms of less than three years for the initial
appointments to the First Full Board Section 4.15, for which some
Directors will have terms of one or two years, do not count against
the term limit.
The limit on consecutive terms supports the healthy regular
introduction of new ideas and energy into the Board and mitigates
potential long-term risk of ossification or conflict, without
adversely impacting the potential pool of director candidates over
time.
4.11. Staggered Terms
ISOC, the IESG, the Nominating Committee, and the Board shall
coordinate with each other to ensure that collectively their
appointment or selection processes provide for no more than three
Directors' terms concluding in the same year.
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4.12. LLC Board Director Removal
Directors may be removed with or without cause. A vote in favor of
removal must be no fewer than the number of Directors less two.
Directors may also be removed via the IETF recall process defined in
[RFC7437] (BCP10), Section 7. So for example, if there are seven
directors, then five votes are required. Directors may also be
removed via the IETF recall process defined in [RFC7437] (BCP10),
Section 7.
4.13. Filling a LLC Board Director Vacancy
It shall be the responsibility of each respective body that appointed
or selected a Director that vacates the Board to appoint a new
Director to fill the vacancy. However this obligation will not apply
to vacancies in Board-appointed positions. For example, if a
Director selected by the NomCom departs the Board prior to the end of
their term for whatever reason, then it is the responsibility of the
NomCom (using it's mid-term rules, as specified in [RFC8318],
Section 3.5) as the original appointing body to designate a
replacement that will serve out the remainder of the term of the
departed Director.
4.14. Interim Board
An initial interim Board will be necessary in order to legally form
and bootstrap the LLC. As a result, an Interim Board will be formed
on a temporary basis until the first full board is constituted.
Barring unforseen circumstances, the Interim Board should conclude no
later than the end of the 104th meeting of the IETF, in March 2019.
The interim Board shall be comprised of:
o The IETF chair, ex officio
o The IAOC chair, ex officio
o The IAB chair, ex officio
o One ISOC trustee, selected by the ISOC Board of Trustees
4.15. First Full Board
A minimum of five Directors must be seated in order for the Board to
be constituted, and then the Interim Board will be dissolved.
Accordingly, the following steps must take place to ensure that this
occurs on a timely basis:
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o The IESG shall make their appointment no later than January 31,
2019.
o ISOC shall make their appointment no later than January 31, 2019.
o The NomCom shall make their appointments no later than March 22,
2019.
If these bodies can make their appointments sooner, then by all means
they should do so in order to enable the first full board to begin as
soon as possible. This is particularly so for the NomCom. If the
NomCom can make their appointments sooner, then the first full board
could be constituted in time for IETF 104 (March 23-29, 2019).
4.16. Board Positions
Following the formation of the first full LLC Board, and at each
subsequent annual meeting of the LLC Board, the Directors shall elect
by a majority vote of the LLC Board a Director to serve as Board
Chair. The Board may also form committees of the Board and/or define
other roles for LLC Board Directors as necessary.
5. LLC Policies
The Board shall develop policies as necessary to achieve the goals of
the LLC, meet transparency expectations of the community, comply with
applicable laws or regulations, or for other reasons as appropriate.
All policies should be developed with input from the IETF community.
Some policies of ISOC may provide a good starting point from which
the Board can begin.
5.1. Conflict of Interest Policy
The Board shall develop a Conflict of Interest policy for the LLC.
While the details shall be determined by the Board, at a minimum such
policy will include the following:
o The IETF, ISOC Board, IAB, or IRTF chair cannot be chair of this
LLC Board, though they may serve as a Director.
o A Director cannot be a paid consultant or employee of the IETF
Executive Director or their sub-contractors, nor a paid consultant
or employee of ISOC.
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5.2. Other Policies
The Board shall develop additional policies for the LLC as necessary,
covering Directors, employees, and contractors, concerning issues
such as:
o Acceptance of gifts and other non-cash compensation;
o Travel and expense reimbursement;
o Anti-bribery;
o Code of conduct;
o Anti-harassment;
o Non-discrimination;
o Whistleblower;
o Document retention;
o Export controls;
o Anti-terrorism sanctions;
o Data protection and privacy;
o Social media
5.3. Compliance
The LLC shall develop and implement a compliance program to ensure
its compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations,
including without limitation laws governing bribery, anti-terrorism
sanctions, export controls, data protection/privacy, as well as other
applicable policies noted in Section 5. In addition, actions and
activities of the LLC must be consistent with 501(c)(3) purposes.
The LLC shall report to ISOC on the implementation of its compliance
plan on an annual basis.
6. Quorum
At all meetings of the Board, at least 2/3 of the Directors then in
office shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. If
a quorum shall not be present at any meeting of the Board, the
Directors present thereat may adjourn the meeting without notice
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other than announcement at the meeting, until a quorum shall be
present.
7. Board Voting
The Board can hold votes during synchronous live meetings of the
Board (including telephonic and video) or via asynchronous written
(including electronic) means. Decisions on regular LLC matters shall
be made by a 2/3 majority vote in favor, with the exception of
removal of a Director as specified in Section 4.12. Absentee voting
and voting by proxy shall not be permitted.
8. Fundraising Practices
When the LLC conducts fundraising, it will substantiate charitable
contributions on behalf of ISOC. The LLC will evaluate and
facilitate state, federal, and other applicable law and regulatory
compliance for ISOC and/or the LLC with respect to such fundraising
activities. In addition, the LLC shall ensure that all fundraising
activities are conducted in compliance with any policies developed by
the LLC, including but not limited to those noted in Section 5.
9. Transition Considerations
Conducting a transition as envisioned in this document will encompass
many different work activities and will require action, involvement,
support, and/or feedback from groups and individuals across the IETF
community. The transition is likely to proceed in these steps but
the community should remain flexible and adapt this plan as changes
occur and complications inevitably arise.
Phase 1: LLC Formation
o The LLC is formed with an Interim Board (see Section 4.14).
o The IAOC continues to operate as usual, such as reviewing and
approving the IETF's FY2019 budget.
o The NomCom is given instructions by the IETF chair to not recruit
for 2019 IAOC positions, and instead recruit for LLC Board
Directors.
o An update of all relevant RFCs is started, reflecting the change
from IAOC to LLC.
Phase 2: Transition from IAOC to LLC
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o The LLC's Interim Board and IAOC shall agree to a transition
schedule to transition IAOC responsibilities one-by-one to the
LLC.
o This phase should optimally conclude prior to the expiration of
IAOC member terms in 2019.
Phase 3: Transition Complete
o The first full board is seated (see Section 4.15).
o All responsibilities of the IAOC have been assumed by the LLC.
o The IAOC can then be shut down.
9.1. Initial Tasks of the LLC Board
The initial tasks of the LLC Board should be prioritized according to
legal necessity and relative importance. Below are suggested
priorities to consider as and after the LLC is formed.
High priority for the Interim Board:
1 - Form the LLC legally
2 - Setup a bank account so that funds can be moved over
3 - Transfer all necessary contracts from ISOC/IAOC to the LLC
4 - Establish & implement a process to pay any employees or
contractors, as necessary
5 - Agree to a transition schedule with the IAOC
6 - Secure any necessary insurance such as Commercial General
Liability and other appropriate insurance policies, with appropriate
coverage limits
Medium Priority for the Interim Board:
1 - Create a job description for the IETF Executive Director
2 - Initiate the process of beginning to search for an IETF Executive
Director and/or outline a process to do so and defer it to the first
full board, as appropriate
First Tasks of the Full Board:
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1 - Develop all necessary LLC policies
2 - Develop all necesssary Board operating procedures and bylaws
3 - Determine the employee benefits/salary framework and/or make
associated staffing decisions
4 - Interview and hire an IETF Executive Director (targeting 1H2019)
5 - Select a chair and other positions as necessary
6 - Define and document how the Board will fulfill its transparency
obligations to the IETF community
7 - Definine the "significant materiality threshold", above which the
Board must approve any contracts, expenditures, or other commitments.
Once the IETF Executive Director and any additional staff are hired,
it would be expected for LLC to:
o Do a thorough review of existing contracts, community volunteer
arrangements, and administrative assets to determine the need for
initial changes.
o Assess areas where the IETF community needs to document its
consensus, e.g., expectations about community involvement in NOC
or tools efforts.
10. Three-Year Assessment
The LLC, with the involvement of the community, shall conduct and
complete an assessment of the structure, processes, and operation of
the IASA and LLC. This should be presented to the community after a
period of roughly three years of operation. The assessment may
potentially include recommendations for improvements or changes in
the IASA and/or LLC.
11. Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jari Arkko, Richard Barnes, Alissa Cooper, Sean Turner and
the IASA 2.0 Working Group for discussions of possible structures,
and to the attorneys of Morgan Lewis and Brad Biddle for legal
advice.
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12. Informative References
[I-D.haberman-iasa20dt-recs]
Haberman, B., Arkko, J., Daigle, L., Livingood, J., Hall,
J., and E. Rescorla, "IASA 2.0 Design Team
Recommendations", draft-haberman-iasa20dt-recs-02 (work in
progress), April 2018.
[I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process]
Lear, E., "IETF Plenary Meeting Venue Selection Process",
draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-16 (work
in progress), June 2018.
[ietf101-slides]
Hall, J., "IASA 2.0 IETF-101 Slides", n.d.,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/101/materials/
slides-101-iasa20-dt-iasa-slides-00>.
[ietf102-slides]
Hall, J., "IASA 2.0 IETF-102 Slides", n.d.,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/102/materials/
slides-102-iasa2-iasa2-structure-draft-00>.
[ML-memo] Morgan Lewis, "Options for New Organization to Conduct
IETF Administrative Support Activities", February 2018,
<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/iasa20/
XT_3vfd3OWVFCW335mRrvWuusaI/>.
[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>.
[RFC8318] Dawkins, S., "IAB, IESG, and IAOC Selection, Confirmation,
and Recall Process: IAOC Advisor for the Nominating
Committee", BCP 10, RFC 8318, DOI 10.17487/RFC8318,
January 2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8318>.
Authors' Addresses
Brian Haberman
Johns Hopkins University
Email: brian@innovationslab.net
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Joseph Lorenzo Hall
CDT
Email: joe@cdt.org
Jason Livingood
Comcast
Email: jason_livingood@comcast.com
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