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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   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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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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   (http://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
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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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