Minutes for IESG at IETF-84
minutes-84-iesg-opsplenary-1

IETF 84 Administrative Plenary Minutes
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Wednesday, 1 August 2012

Minutes by Alexa Morris


1. Welcome

Russ Housley welcomed the audience to the administrative plenary.

Based on community feedback at the IETF 83 Administrative Plenary, a
format with reduced reporting was used.  The reports include links for
interested parties to find additional information if desired.


2. Host Plaque Presented to Google

Warren Kumari accepted the host plaque on behalf of Google.


3. Reporting

3.1. IETF Chair Report

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-10.ppt


3.2. IAOC Chair & IAD Reports

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-8.pptx


3.4. Trust Chair Report

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-5.ppt


3.5. NomCom Chair Report

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-6.ppt


4. Postel Award

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-2.ppt

Lynn St.Amour introduced the Jon Postel award and this year's winner of
the Jon Postel award: Pierre Ouedraogo, founding member of a number of
African regional Internet organizations.

Mr. Ouedraogo thanked the Internet Society for the honor and described
the growth of the Internet in Africa.


5. Recognition

http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/84/slides/slides-84-iesg-opsplenary-7.ppt

Russ led a moment of silence for R.L. "Bob" Morgan, a long time IETF
contributor who passed away on 12 July 2012.


6. IAOC Open Mic

IAOC Members came to the stage and introduced themselves. 

Pete Resnick: This is a good venue. Not everything went perfectly, of
course, but it's a darn good venue. I like being under one roof. City is
relatively easy to access, and we are in the middle of the city so you
can get to different food venues. This is a good model.

Bob Hinden: I really enjoyed the food trucks out in Vancouver. Recommend
Japadog, and I have no commercial interest.

Nurit Sprecher: I support this venue, and the excellent host. I would
debate about the location, for me it was a travel nightmare. I would
suggest Israel in the future.

Charlie Perkins: Vancouver is fabulous. But I would like to suggest that
we have a few more places to sit around and talk. I have to go to the
second floor bar here. I would like a few more places out in the hall
to chat. 

Ole Jacobson: Have you tried going up to 34th floor?

Charlie: Yes, that is very nice.

Bob: Good comment, I also like having places to sit and chat informally.

Eric Burger: I also think it would be nice to come to a venue like this,
as well as other places. The hotel was relatively affordable and it
would be nice for future hotels to also be affordable.

Bob: We agree, and it's one of our criteria. When it gets close to $300
per night, its way too high. We much prefer this rate. 

Ray Pelletier: I'd like to add that we will be here next November for
IETF 88 at the same guest room rate.

Bob: Last call for comments ...  And now, we'll turn it over to the IESG.
Thank you very much.


7. IESG Open Mic

IESG Members came to the stage and introduced themselves.

Ed Juskevicius: Can you say again what you said about a half an hour ago,
about the document called the Open Modern Standards Paradigm. 

Russ Housley: Did you read it? 

Ed: I read it, I'm wondering what it is?  Is it some petition that the
IESG is going to sign?  Is it an IESG authored document?

Russ: Myself, Bernard Aboba along with some folks from the Internet
Society have collaborated with some other folks from the IEEE and the
WC3.  We are trying to tell people about our core values and our
principles.  We will ask other SDOs to follow along. 

Ed: The only mention of this that I can find on I* websites is a new box
posted on the IAB web site on 2 August 2012, which says that we are
developing a Modern Standards Paradigm.  Also, comments can be sent to
the IAB. And the bottom line, it says comments are closed. 

Russ: Are you calling for people in the leadership to ask the community
something?

Ed: I'm just wondering, if it is not a petition, what is it? Is it a
statement of principle?

Russ: It is a statement of principle. 

Ed: The wording says that modern standards are developed with broad
consensus, which is slightly different than rough.

Russ: The reason for the slightly different wording is that
organizations that are following the basic principles but doing things
like voting, such as the IEEE, could not sign up for rough consensus.
So we are trying to come up with words that capture basic principles of
all of these groups and yet make it clear that it is a different
direction from what some other organizations might be doing. 

Ed: Final question. After it is signed, what do you do with it?

Russ: Like I just said, I hope other organizations -- other from the
ones who helped write it -- to join in and agree that these principles
are being used. Myself and Steve Mills, who is the president of the
IEEE Standards Association, will also be talking about those principles
at the Global Standards Symposium in Dubai in November. 

Ed: Ok, thank you.

[UKNOWN MALE]: Is that document going to have IETF or ISOC brand on it?

Russ: No. Signatories will be standards development organizations, as
well as organizations that believe standards should be developed
according to these principles.

[SAME UNKOWN MALE]: The difference is important to me. If it is
standards organizations, then it seems we should have consensus for it. 

Russ: Agreed. I think all of those principles align with BCPs. 

Bob Hinden: I did read it and I do like it. I am in support. There is
this activity going on in the world with the ITU, and I think it is
really good to state that the issues that we, the IEEE, and WC3 have
with the ITU are problems that we are all having. It is not just the
IETF whining. And this statement is a very good thing in that regard.

Russ: Thank you.

Harald Alvestrand: I'd like to voice my support for the statement, and
I'd like to voice my support as a positive comment on the last call on
the IETF announce list. 

Russ: Thank you.

Nurit Sprecher: I support this statement too. I wonder if there was any
attempt to get more organizations involved in this effort. I think it is
very important. Organizations like Vodaphone or 3GPP. What is the scope?
What is the charter? I think it could be very useful for the industry,
so I would like to encourage you to create contacts with other
organizations. If there is any need for help, I would be very happy to
support.

Russ: Getting the people who have been involved to converge on the exact
words is challenging. We had to get to stable wording before asking
others to join. We felt it would be much harder to ask people to support
something that wasn't quite done. As you can see, the document says
draft; however, we are very close to being done. It will be easier to
get an organization such as OASIS to support the document when it is
done.

Nurit: I think that this is correct. I think it would be powerful to
have 3GPP voice agreement.

Cullen Jennings: I was just noting that the IPR terms vary from RF to
FRAND. I wish that was true. But I think that often our IPR terms at
IETF end up being much worse than that.

Russ: Understand. 

Leslie Daigle: I wanted just to help you out a bit by popping up a
level and giving the broader context of this whole statement. You have
alluded to the fact that it was born from discussions with a number of
organizations. Everyone should appreciate that Russ is presenting today
something that he thinks is viable for the IETF. The challenge has been
that indeed the words have been discussed extensively for a period of
time and there was fairly wide divergence exactly on the point that
Cullen just mentioned. Have been seeking terminology that says something
positive about how to do things, and also encompasses a broad range of
ways that different organizations do things. We are very different from
the WC3, which is very different from the IEEE. But we are trying to
capture things that are positive, constructive, new -- as compared to
the establishment, if you will, of the SDO world. So that has been the
challenge. Having input from people in terms of support or not is
probably quite useful. The document -- and I will personally take
responsibility for some of this -- is not in the best English ever. So,
some of the comments on it would be better if it were written this way,
you'll get a polite smile and a nod, and we will take that into
consideration in the next iteration. So, just by way of context, it is
a joint effort, and I hope we are capturing something useful that
expresses something the community believes in. Because personally, I
think the really novel thing is to stand up and say, there are formal
standards development organization in the world, and there are other
organizations that get together and are doing something that is
slightly different, being driven by different motivations. We are
seeking technical excellence, are dedicated to being open, are
dedicated to providing standards that will be built by industry. And
that isn't an immature form. We are hoping not to grow up into the
more traditional form. We are trying to make a statement so that more
people understand that this is a real thing, and that it is valuable.

Scott Bradner: I made some comments on this document to the authors. I
think it is a very important thing to say, for the reasons that Leslie
just described. But I do worry that it has to be accurate. And I do
believe that the specific text of the IPR section is not accurate, when
it comes to the IETF. And could be used against us because it is not
what we do. 

Russ: Thank you, and I can tell you that those words are still under
discussion. The concerns that Cullen any you raised are representative
of a comment that I have already shared with the people trying to put
this to together.

Eliot Lear: The question was asked, what next, after this? And, I will
tell you, rather than just staring at Russ and asking that question, I
want to put it to this group. What next? What can YOU do? If you think
this is a good statement, I think it is a good statement, I am going to
be espousing it everywhere I go, because I think it is so important to
say. The world could change in some really bad ways if we let things go
in a different direction, so it is important to read this statement and
make comments on it. And tell your friends about it, and your family,
and everybody else. 

Matt Lepinski: On a different topic. The IETF working group meeting
schedule was bad this meeting. It is bad every meeting; it is always
going to be bad. But it was decidedly less bad than it has been in the
past. So, whatever it is that you guys are doing for the intractable
problem of working group scheduling, this is a marked improvement over
what we have had the last couple of IETFs. 

Russ: Thank you for noticing.  We did exactly what we said we would do
at the last plenary. Instead of trying to schedule this meeting against
the grid that we put together for last meeting, we started fresh, and
looked at all the session requests and made a new grid based on these
session requests. That is why you see the number of two-and-a-half-hour
slots and one-hour slots are closer to the actual time requested by the
working group chairs. As a result, we were able to avoid some conflicts
that could not be avoid under the previous grid. So, next meeting we
will again look at the mix of session requests and lay out a new, custom
grid  for that meeting. 

Pete Resnick: We were all shocked that it came out as cleanly as did.

Russ: And thank you very much to the Secretariat, especially Wanda Lo,
for doing all of that work. 

Charlie Perkins: So I heard what Eliot said, and I also really like the
statement between the IETF and IEEE and W3C, but in a way, going
everywhere all at once is kind of hard to do. Maybe it would be good to
have a targeted effort. It seems to me that organizations like ONF and
3GPP and a couple of others that might come to mind might be good
organizations to subscribe. We can have an effect by bringing the
statement to our management and suggesting that they would do better
for the Internet by subscribing or asking as a member of the
organization to have that organization support the statement. The more
organizations that support it, the better.

Russ: I would encourage all of you that are members of those
organizations to take these principles home.

Bert Winjen: I have a question about the endowment. When Bob mentioned
that we have 33 donors. I am pleased to see the amount that they donated
actually. But when we have 33 donors out of the 1100 something attendees
here, I wonder what kind of message that sends to the outside world. Do
we not support our own organization? And then I wonder, why is that? Is
it clear to everybody what the endowment is doing, what it is trying to
achieve and how it is trying to achieve it? And why donations are needed?

Russ: Well I was hoping that that question was answered in Bob's slide.
We are talking about guaranteeing the financial security of the IETF
going forwards so that we can have an endowment that guarantees that
the IETF can continue no matter the condition of the economy. 

Bert: So, I understand that now. I am on the ISOC Board, and we talked
about the endowment there, and it was explained to me. When I first
heard about the endowment, you know English is not my native language
so I had no idea what that meant and I thought that, oh, that is just
going to be a little money in their pot, and I am not sure how that is
going to be used. Now that I understand, I have much more appreciation
for what it is, and I wondered if there are other people who do not
understand how this works. It might be helpful if you say a few words
about that. 

Russ: Shortly after I became IETF Chair, one of the questions we were
asking was how do we make sure that the IETF is financially secure. It
took a long time, and we explored all kinds of nooks and crannies of
possible revenue sources This endowment seems to be the best one, and
the time seems to be now. All those things were said Monday night. The
idea is to create a pot of money; we thought it would be best to seed
that pot with the IETF community, who is going to be most supported by
that pot of money. And then once the friends and family here have been
able to contribute we will reach outside, especially going to those
folks who have made personal fortunes from the Internet, and ask them
to help too.

Adrian Farrel: It has only been a couple of days, and some of us
have been doing other things, but the thing about seeding is really
important. It is not like we are asking everyone for their entire
life wealth, but everybody chipping in sends quite an important
message. So maybe Russ, can we go over the mechanism for actually
doing it.

Russ: Sure. The mechanism is quite simple. You go to the URL that was
on the slide, and it will take your credit card information. If you do
not want to do that, you want to give in some other way, go to the guys
at the table on the third floor or at the Bits-N-Bites and they will
figure out a way to help you. There is also an email address on the
slide, oie@internetsociety.org.

Joel Jaeggli: I have a comment along a similar vein. I am actually quite
in favor of the idea of having both a cash cushion that deals with
eventualities around the unpredictability of IETF finances, attendance,
and so forth, and having capital available to engage in projects that
have longer time horizons or questionable support. What I am not in
favor of is the idea of perpetuity. When an organization has served its
purpose, much like a working group, it should probably go away. And I
do not foresee that occurring to the IETF in the immediate future, but
I can imagine it happening. And it would be unfortunate for the
organization to become irrelevant and not realize it. Thanks.

Russ: I have a hard time imagining that future at the moment, Joel. But
I know of some other standards organizations that might have become
irrelevant and have not closed their doors. 

Joel: Some time horizons are much longer than others.

Russ: But actually that is part of why it is named the Open Internet
Endowment. Had we named it Open IETF Endowment then we would not have
had that flexibility, and so that was part of the thought process.

Bert Winjen: So, I'm still sort of worried about the fact that we have
only 33 donors when the minimum amount is $50. So you would expect that
we are all engineers and many of us have been coming for many years and
you would think that if we really really believe that this organization
is vital to the open Internet standards that we would all at least chip
in with $50.

Russ: Are you trying to make a challenge? 

Warren Kumari: It is also possible that more people have not signed up
because they can't. The web site is just throwing errors, the credit
card processing thing -- unknown error 5. Maybe once that is fixed...

Eric Burger: Warren thank you because I thought I was the only person
on the planet who got unknown error 5. And ISOC is working on it, but
there is more than one way to give money. You can still go up to the
desk, they will still take your credit card. You can still go to
www.openinternetendowment.org. And if you get the unknown error 5, you
can join me and Warren and commiserate and still give them your credit
card. 

Harald: And I will note, having got the t-shirt, that the web site does
not work, which is one of a few things that the Internet Society should
fix. A couple of other things that I would like to fix is to actually
have the intended rule set on which this fund is going to be operated
and the names of the people who are responsible for operating it. It is
a little short on details. 

Russ: The committee names were displayed at the beginning of the slide
presentation on Monday, and but ultimately the ISOC Board is the final
authority. 

Harald: I was a bit surprised to see the web site contained less
information than your Monday presentation. 

Lynn St.Amour: Harald you are absolutely right. But we actually covered
some of this in the IETF 83 plenary when we said that there will be a
proper formal launch of the endowment, it will be overseen by the
Internet Society Board of Trustees. At our last board meeting the ISOC
Board actually approved an investment policy which will be made public
at the appropriate time as well. We will have an endowment council which
will be established by individuals that give significant seven-figure
dollar gifts -- the outreach is underway today. Normally when you do an
endowment you do not announce it until you have approximately 50% of
the amount you are seeking. We actually thought, in this culture, in
this room, that is a little bit backwards. This room is about
participation, and it is about our process, and bottom up. So we
actually did something that is a little unusual. There are often times
family launches, that might be with with 10, 20, or 30 people, not
1200 people and streamed around the world. So this is a very large
family launch. But we actually thought it was appropriate in keeping
with the culture of the IETF and frankly hoping that you will help
support our outreach efforts with some of those high net worth
individuals. This is part of a strategy for providing long-term
financial support for the IETF.  When we are ready for that, and we
have all of those things lined up, namely the high seven-figure
donors, then we will do full proper launch with all of the supporting
documents behind it. So this is kind of a halfway house to make sure
the IETF is aware that we are going forward with this, what its purpose
is, how it will be driven, and where it fits in to the long-term
financial strategy for the IETF. This week is not, really, a full
endowment launch. So I hope that answers questions, if not, I will be
at the Bits-N-Bites table tomorrow night. We do have people out at the
ISOC table on the 3rd floor that can answer some of those questions as
well. But there will be a full rollout plan, a full endowment launch,
hopefully around the October time frame or maybe at the Atlanta meeting
in November. 

Harald: Thank you. And please note that announcement at a plenary is
not announcement to the community. 

Bill Atwood: I have a question about the tax status of this organization
in the sense of the donor community. Because the donor community is
worldwide, and if this thing is formulated as a 501(c)(3) or whatever it
is, how are you going to deal with donations from the rest of the 150
countries or however many there are in the world. 

Russ: I don't personally know the answer to that question. Lynn, I don't
know if you do either. 

Lynn: A partial answer. So it is a charitable donation, and in some
countries it is tax deductible. The only way you could actually get a
tax deductible contribution if you were in another country would be if
this organization was also incorporated in that country. So we could
incorporate it in multiple countries. Drew is coming up to help me. But
that just incurs its own set of complexities and costs because you need
directors and boards and that sort of thing. So at this point in time
it is a 501(c)(3), which is a US corporation, and in some countries that
may be tax deductible but certainly not in all.

Drew Dvorshak: So first of all that is an excellent question. One of the
things that I have been thinking about recently is exactly that and how
to do this, and I have been talking with Jeff Hensley, my colleague, who
is directly responsible for this. One thing that we can look into, and I
think we will, is looking at forging alliances with national trust
charities. Meaning a charity that exists in a country, that exists for
the benefit of the people in that country and while there may be an
administrative fee of some sort, it is possible for people, when we get
these alliances forged, to donate to that charity in their country and
then they will, in turn, make the donation on your behalf to the
endowment. Or for that matter it may work for any other program you
wish to support. The devil is in the details in these things and I am
sure that we will have to talk to several tax advisors in several
different countries but that is one possibility of how to overcome this.
And I would also say that some countries, I believe, do reciprocate
because 501(c)(3) is well known, so some countries will reciprocate,
under some circumstances. 

Bill: I suspect that mine may be one of those, but I am looking to the
much larger community because the IETF is not just US people, and other
people -- you just have to look at the pie charts that have been up to
see that. 

Drew: Thank you for bringing that up. 

Russ: As I said earlier, there are ways to give other than the credit
card. I went to the table and worked out that I am going to give
quarterly for the next three years. Since we are looking to build the
endowment over the next three years, and I encourage you all to consider
doing something similar. If you cannot give it today, maybe you can
give it over time. 

Russ: I see no one at the mic. Have a good dinner!