Exactly right. To add one other point – I am the one who proposed we allow “Subcommittees” in the new Working Groups during the early discussions in the Governance Change Working Group that led to Ballot 206. I chose the name “Subcommittee” to avoid confusion (as we were now using the term “Working Group” to refer to the main group that needed Subcommittees to do preliminary work on ballot proposal), but I made it clear at the time that the new Subcommittees of the new Working Groups would function exactly the same as the old Working Groups of the Forum. There was no confusion or argument on this point among the Governance Change participants.
I personally don’t see the need for yet more work to further define Subcommittees in the Bylaws, but will not object if others want to work on that. In the meantime, we need to move forward on creating the Validation and NetSec Subcommittees so they can continue their work after October 3 (and can meet as part of the Tuesday agenda at the Shanghai F2F meeting next month). Those who don’t like the process can always vote no. I will present a revised draft of SC9 and SC10 later today taking into account the comments already received. From: Dimitris Zacharopoulos [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2018 10:43 PM To: Ryan Sleevi <[email protected]>; CA/Browser Forum Public Discussion List <[email protected]>; Kirk Hall <[email protected]> Subject: [EXTERNAL]Re: [cabfpub] Ballot SC10 – Establishing the Network Security Subcommittee of the SCWG It looks like a similar conversation was captured in the minutes of previous Server Certificate WG teleconferences. * https://cabforum.org/2018/07/12/2018-07-12-scwg-minutes/ where the ambiguity on how to form subcommittees was first raised * https://cabforum.org/2018/07/26/2018-07-26-server-certificate-working-group-minutes/ where the members expressed their opinion (via doodle poll) and the majority chose to resolve this ambiguity by requiring ballots for the formation of subcommittees in the SCWG. IMO, members are in favor of ballots to resolve issues like this. The definition of a subcommittee is broad enough and described in 5.3.1(e) "to address any of such CWG's business". It is very clear to me that both proposed subcommittees (validation and NetSec) are within the SCWG's scope. I thought we had agreed that until the SCWG charter is amended (to include language around subcommittees, election of officers and other issues that were discussed in previous calls), we would proceed with using ballots as the agreed-upon decision making process. I understand that Kirk's proposed ballots (as a process) are aligned with this decision. The content of the ballots (whether or not we will name "chairs", etc for subcommittees) is debatable and under discussion. As a general comment, I would like to note that the majority of Contributions were taking place during "Legacy Working Groups" with the previous governance. These "officially declared" teams had great momentum, produced a lot of improvements to the Forum's Guidelines, met regularly and were coordinated by one or two people that facilitated the discussions and provided the necessary logistics (calendar scheduling, agendas, minutes and so on). I can't imagine that the Governance change intended to make things so hard to form these currently-called "subcommittees". In case of doubt, ballots were always a good way forward, unless they propose something that is clearly against the Bylaws. Dimitris. On 14/9/2018 3:43 πμ, Ryan Sleevi via Public wrote: On Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 8:39 PM Kirk Hall <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Thanks for the list, Wayne. Responses inline. Remember, a Subcommittee has no real power, it’s just a place where members interested in a subject who want to be involved in drafting proposals for the whole SCWG can work together – we have 10+ years of successful experience with this approach, and are just continuing it at the SCWG level. [Wayne] To respond to Kirk's question about subjects that need to be better defined, here is a start: * Do Subcommittees have Chairs and if so how are they appointed? [KH] Yes, for the same reason we had Chairs for old-style Working Groups of the Forum. There is no change here (BTW, our Bylaws didn’t include rules for old WG Chairs either – somehow it all worked out). Dean has correctly listed what a Chair does. This answer doesn't suffice, because our new Bylaws do change things substantially, and the reasons for the old structure of WGs doesn't just naturally change to SCWGs. * How are Subcommittees chartered? (are they chartered?) [KH] Same as in the past when we created old-style WGs of the Forum – by ballots, in this case SCWG ballots. No change here. This is half correct, but misses the point of the question. The SCWG is responsible for defining how Subcommittees are created, per our Bylaws - and it has not. Yet. * What are the required contents of a Subcommittee charter? [KH] Same as in the past when we created old-style WGs of the Forum – by ballot language. We never had problems in drafting the ballots that created old WGs of the Forum – see Ballots 109, 128, 138, 143, 165, and 203. No change here. What problem do you see from following our past procedure? Obviously, there's nothing you can point to support this interpretation, and your interpretation itself isn't supported by the Bylaws, because the SCWG does not define what you just stated. * How are Subcommittees operated? [KH] In the same fashion as old WGs of the Forum were operated – teleconferences and informal procedures. No change here. Again, this is not consistent with the Bylaws. This is your proposed path, but this is not the defined path. * What information is public/private? Do they have their own mailing lists? [KH] Same as the way information was handled for the old WGs of the Forum – I think old WG information has always been posted to the Public list, so the new Subcommittees will simply post to the SCWG list, which is public. No change here. Again, this is not consistent with the Bylaws. This is your proposed path, but this is not the defined path. * How are Subcommittees dissolved? [KH] In the same fashion as old WGs of the Forum were handled. If a Subcommittee has no work to do, it can stop meeting until it has more work, or I suppose we can have a new ballot to dissolve the Subcommittee, if we care. Most Subcommittees will have ongoing work to do (Validation, NetSec), so should be perpetual. We may create other Subcommittees that should have a specific termination date in the ballot that creates the Subcommittee it if we believe that is appropriate, as we did once in the past. No change here. Again, this is not consistent with the Bylaws. This is your proposed path, but this is not the defined path. _______________________________________________ Public mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://cabforum.org/mailman/listinfo/public
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