Subject: RE: ADs who are also WG chairs

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 09:38:12 -0700

> 1. OASIS is a paid-membership group. Some would considered 
> that the fact 
> it is paid-membership makes is exclusive (altho not exactly closed).

This is irrelevant, that aspect of OASIS is not essential to the points I
raised.

Also the right to vote as an OASIS member is not the same as the right to
vote in a TC. An individual member of OASIS pays a reduced subscription and
does not get a vote in OASIS governance issues, mention in press releases
etc. However an individual member or even a non-member contributor has the
same voting rights in a TC.

> 2. IETF dont have "members", or at least similar to OASIS. 

There are plenty of proxies for membership that can be effected.

> Participating 
> in IETF are usually free (excluding cost of attending IETF 
> meetings) so 
> any formal voting process, web-based or otherwise, arent 
> likely going to 
> work. (If in doubt, look at GA@ICANN).

I see no conflict between membership being free and having voting. The only
reason there is a charge to join OASIS is the need to pay the administrative
costs. The IETF has found an alternative solution.

I fail to see the relevance of ICANN processes here.

> 3. OASIS is a coporate-centric organization whereas IETF is an 
> individual-centeric organization. (This is not to say individual cant 
> participate in OASIS or coporate cant participate in IETF...)
> 
> Are we prepared to make this big switch making IETF an 
> industry consortium?

Again that is not being proposed, you are raising a false dichotomy. 

The choice is between taking action to make the IETF internal processes open
democratic and accountable allowing the IETF to continue to direct Internet
standards development as a voluntary body or attempting to continue with the
status quo where control inside the IETF is vested in a small unaccountable
clique and vendors increasingly abandon IETF process for more open forums.

Attempting to maintain the status quo will result in the exact situation you
are trying to prevent.

		Phill

---

From: James Seng <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2003 14:28:59 +0800

> This is irrelevant, that aspect of OASIS is not essential to the points I

It is relevant. A paid-membership vs a no-membership fees is one of the 
key differences between IETF & OASIS.

> same voting rights in a TC.

To be a OASIS "TC voting member", you need to be an "eligable member" 
and participate in TC activites for at least 3 times. Therefore, this 
set the prerequiste that you need to pay some form of memberships to 
OASIS in order to participate in OASIS TC.

> There are plenty of proxies for membership that can be effected.

'proxies' for which group? IETF dont have the concept of proxies and 
OASIS TC voting dont allow proxies. So I am not sure how my comment and 
your response fit together.

> I fail to see the relevance of ICANN processes here.

Obviously you have not watch the ICANN experiment with free membership + 
voting process in GA...Take a look back at GA@ICANN history.

Most organisation I deal with either have restricted membership but have 
voting or free & open membership but no formal voting.

I have yet to see a successful organisation which is both free & open 
and have voting. If you have a reference to an organisation that 
actually works this way, I would love to study it.

> Attempting to maintain the status quo will result in the exact situation you

The word "open & democratic" keep popping up in your mail whereas IETF 
core principle is "running code & rough consensus".

This is not to say we are trying to maintain status quo...otherwise, we 
wont be doing this excerise. But changing the organisation does not mean 
we change our core principle.

I prefer to stick with our "running code & rough consensus" principle, 
then see how we can build an open, bottom-up organisation that lives by 
that principle.

So while I agree that a formal voting process might helps to bring "open 
& democratic" organisation, I am not sure how it fits into our "running 
code & rough consensus" principle.

-James Seng