The IESG charter process

[RJ Atkinson]

On Friday, Mar 7, 2003, at 08:31 America/Montreal, Margaret Wasserman 
wrote:
> What process it makes sense to follow in this case is highly
> dependent on what you think the purpose of the IESG charter is,
> and what it will be used for.
>
> If you think that this charter should represent IETF consensus
> regarding what we think that role of the IESG should be moving
> forward, we need a great deal more community involvement before
> publishing it.  That effort would need to incude a discussion
> of whether or not a major IETF reorganization is needed.
>
> If you think that the charter merely documents the IESG's view
> of its own current responsibilities, which the community may
> later choose to change, then the process that Harald has
> suggested is fine.  But, this limitation should be made clear
> in the document.
>
> It is important, IMO, to avoid a situation where a document is
> published through the back channel, and then interpreted (by
> the IESG or others, now or in the future) as a community mandate.
>
> Margaret

The stated intent is to publish the IESG Charter as a BCP, which
means that it would have the IETF-equivalent of being "law".

Anything published as BCP is interpreted afterwards as having
had "IETF consensus".

So it seems pretty clear to me that the former case (IETF consensus
on the role of the IESG) is in-hand, not the latter case (IESG's 
personal
views on the role of the IESG).

That noted, the IETF Community can *always* change any of our process
documents (in theory).  In practice, it is impossible to change any
IETF process document without the consent of the then-current IESG
(because they [1] can block formation of a WG and [2] also can block
advancement of an I-D into IETF Last Call and [3] also can block
publication of an I-D as a standards-track/BCP RFC).

Many in the community view use of the "4 week Last Call" option in
the current process as a "back-channel attempt to short-circuit
community input".  Whether or not that is an accurate characterisation,
the IESG would be wise to consider the question of community perception
of their actions here. (and yes, there is a substantial part of the
community that believes, rightly or not, that "the current IESG does
not get it".)

Ran
rja at extremenetworks.com