Re: Affiliation disclosure in security WGs

--On Monday, June 29, 2026 11:39 -0400 Donald Eastlake
<[email protected]> wrote:

> John Klensin said: "we have rules
> limiting the number of people from one organization who can
> simultaneously serve on, e.g., the Nomcom or IESG."
> 
> The only such rule of which I am aware is for the Nomcom. In
> particular, there is no such rule for the IESG or IAB or ...

You are, of course, correct.

> Of course, in practice, despite the lack of such rules, Nomcoms (I
> have served on several including once as chair and once as previous
> chair) try to avoid affiliation concentration in the IESG, etc.,
> but it depends on what good candidates are available.

I've certainly seen signs of that and am aware of feedback given to
some Nomcoms about about avoiding the appearance of domination by one
or more companies, an appearance that could be very bad for the
credibility of the IETF.  And, as SM pointed out,

>  Furthermore,
> once someone is selected/installed on, say, the IESG, there is
> nothing stopping an AD from changing affiliation, including
> changing to an affiliation which is the same as one or more other
> ADs.

Of course. But, at least IMO, that would be a significant issue only
if the relevant organization already had sufficient people on the
IESG to cause concern.  As SM at least started to point out [1], the
IESG's Conflict of Interest policy requires a fairly high level of
affiliation disclosure from its members and other "Covered
Individuals" and recusal of multiple people with overlapping
conflicts could, in principle, create a situation in which
decision-making because impossible.

With regard to disclosure policies, I think Rob Wilton's note [2],
when combined with that Conflict of Interest policy, covers most of
the issues better than I possibly could have. 

   john

[1]
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/ZDGZACJ6vA4yxX7UeMzjeEv9On8
[2]
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/WX6nqEfqV01JrIgypC0mYsNI2A8