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!