Internet Engineering Task Force J. Arkko Internet-Draft Ericsson Intended status: Informational September 7, 2018 Expires: March 11, 2019 Discussion of the IASA 2.0 Changes as They Relate to the IETF Trust draft-ietf-iasa2-trust-rationale-00 Abstract The IASA 2.0 changes will have an impact on the IETF Trust because members of the IET Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) IAOC, which is being phased out, have served as Trustees of the IETF Trust. This discussion document provides background on 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. 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 http://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. 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 (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 Arkko Expires March 11, 2019 [Page 1] Internet-Draft IASA 2.0 and IETF Trust September 2018 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 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. Changes from Previous Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Introduction The IASA 2.0 changes will have an impact on the IETF Trust [RFC4071] [RFC4371] [I-D.hall-iasa2-struct]. This is because members of the IETF's Internet Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC), which is being phased out, have served as Trustees of the IETF Trust. A proposal for a minimal change regarding this has been provided separately in draft-ietf-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 Internet Engineering Task Force (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 such as "IETF" and domain names such as "ietf.org". The IETF Trust is also serving the broader Internet community by holding domains and trademarks associated with Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [RFC7979]. Arkko Expires March 11, 2019 [Page 2] Internet-Draft IASA 2.0 and IETF Trust September 2018 The IETF Trust is a legal entity, registered in the Commonwealth of Virginia [Trust-FD]. Currently, the members of the IAOC also serve as ex officio 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 Internet Engineering Steering Group (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. Two are named by the IETF Nominating Committee (NomCom), one by the IESG, one by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and one by the Internet Society (ISOC) Board of Trustees. In addition, there are three ex-officio members via their roles as IETF Chair, ISOC CEO, and 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 minimize changes to the IETF Trust while the IETF's administrative structure is undergoing major change. In addition, the IETF Trust and other administrative IETF process are quite different. While very important, the IETF Trust is a low activity entity where changes are minimal and gradual, and there are no pressing issues. 4. Changing the Way Trustees Are Selected At the time when the trustees served on 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. 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 Arkko Expires March 11, 2019 [Page 3] Internet-Draft IASA 2.0 and IETF Trust September 2018 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 is to have trustees appointed by the NomCom, IESG, and ISOC Board of Trustees, or even the new IETF Administration LLC legal entity (but he 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 NomCom 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 LLC is set up, soon thereafter 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 other members of the earlier IASA 2.0 design team who were Brian Haberman, Eric Rescorla, Jason Livingood, Joe Hall, and Leslie Daigle. The authors would also like to thank Alissa Cooper, Ted Hardie, Andrew Sullivan, Brian Carpenter, Lucy Lynch, and John Levine for interesting discussions in this problem space. Arkko Expires March 11, 2019 [Page 4] Internet-Draft IASA 2.0 and IETF Trust September 2018 7. Changes from Previous Versions RFC Editor: Please remove this section upon publication. The version draft-ietf-iasa2-trust-rationale-00.txt includes only editorial and language updates. The version draft-arkko-iasa2-trust-rationale-00.txt was the initial version. 8. References 8.1. 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, . [RFC4371] Carpenter, B., Ed. and L. Lynch, Ed., "BCP 101 Update for IPR Trust", BCP 101, RFC 4371, DOI 10.17487/RFC4371, January 2006, . [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, . 8.2. Informative References [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. [I-D.ietf-iasa2-trust-update] Arkko, J. and T. Hardie, "Update to the Selection of Trustees for the IETF Trust", draft-ietf-iasa2-trust- update-00 (work in progress), September 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, . Arkko Expires March 11, 2019 [Page 5] Internet-Draft IASA 2.0 and IETF Trust September 2018 [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, . [Trust-FD] IETF Trust, , "Founding Documents", February 2014 (https://trustee.ietf.org/founding-documents.html). Author's Address Jari Arkko Ericsson Kauniainen 02700 Finland Email: jari.arkko@piuha.net Arkko Expires March 11, 2019 [Page 6]