As I’ve repeatedly pointed out every time it’s come up, there’s no support in 
the Bylaws for these additional obstacles to the Validation Working Group’s 
clearly expressed choice of option (a).

 

-Tim

 

From: Public <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Ryan Sleevi via Public
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2018 1:37 PM
To: Kirk Hall <[email protected]>
Cc: CABFPub <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [cabfpub] [EXTERNAL]Re: Ballot SC10 – Establishing the Network 
Security Subcommittee of the SCWG

 

That's a fairly broad misrepresentation. It hasn't been stalemated - it's that 
someone who said they'd work on it has not made any apparent effort to put 
forward.

 

Since that conversation in July, in which members agreed upon the problem 
statement and proposed path forward, no actual concrete proposal was made. Now 
we see a concrete proposal, with issues, and it seems you have no interest in 
resolving those issues. Perhaps if you'd put forth a concrete proposal 2 months 
ago, it wouldn't feel like a stalemate?

 

In any event, it's not correct there's a stalemate. There's been relatively 
good agreement on the problem, and it's just that the proposed solution - which 
has only come forward in the past few days after relatively limited discussion 
- is significantly flawed for the problem.

 

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 1:27 PM Kirk Hall <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

This discussion is no longer productive – we have been stalemated for two 
months or so, and I don’t think most members agree with your approach.  It 
would probably be best for just to just vote no on the ballots, but *also* 
volunteer to work with Ben to amend the Bylaws in whatever way you think is 
needed.

 

From: Ryan Sleevi [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] 
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2018 10:22 AM
To: Kirk Hall <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >; CABFPub <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Subject: Re: [cabfpub] [EXTERNAL]Re: Ballot SC10 – Establishing the Network 
Security Subcommittee of the SCWG

 

Kirk,

 

You have a real opportunity to resolve these issues, and I hope you will 
incorporate that feedback into consideration. There are now multiple threads, 
in part because some of your forked replies, but to summarize where we stand:

 

Nothing in the Bylaws requires resolution on/by October 3, other than that they 
will cease to be LWGs.

While no longer LWGs, if they choose to be subcommittees, then it has to be 
done using the process defined by the SCWG.

The SCWG has not defined or balloted its process for these.

If you're proposing that these ballots use an assumed process that is not 
specified, we're opposed and remain opposed, because having the Forum and the 
Chair make up process continues to undermine the legitimacy of the Forum and 
its value, needlessly and irresponsibly.

 

If you feel it's important to establish these before Oct 3 - which it isn't, 
procedurally - then one path you can do that can resolve the feedback and 
concerns is to actually spell out the things you are assuming, such as that 
subcommittees will produce minutes, operate on public lists, allow 
participation, etc. This is not difficult, it's just more work - but that's the 
cost of doing things right, you sometimes have to put a bit of effort in to do 
it right.

 

As you can see from those minutes, this has been known to be a problem for 
months. The proposal was simple: "Dimitris again noted that new Bylaw 5.3.1(e) 
did not provide for a method for creating Subcommittees, and maybe the Bylaws 
or Charter should be amended to provide a method, and Wayne agreed."

 

There's still no definition for how the Subcommittee will operate, and that 
should be in the ballot to form it, since the Chair did not propose a ballot 
based on the Doodle Poll that the Chair conducted for a matter the Chair 
brought to resolve.

 

On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 1:08 PM Kirk Hall via Public <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:

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] <mailto:[email protected]> 
] 
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2018 10:43 PM
To: Ryan Sleevi <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >; CA/Browser 
Forum Public Discussion List <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> 
>; Kirk Hall <[email protected] 
<mailto:[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.

 

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