20220126 - Futures WG meeting (governance)

Attendees: Peter Gietz, Casper Dreef, Pål Axelsson, Stephen Lovell, Davide Vaghetti, Tomasz Wolniewicz, Steve Glover, Alber Wu, Maarten Kremers, Kevin Hickey, Mario Reale, Alan Buxey, Terry Smith, Klaas Wierenga, Alex Stuart, Chris Phillips, Dean Flanders, Anass Chabli, Meshna Koren, Licia Florio

Notes:

Goal 3: Make effective changes and improvements.

Size of SG. Turning into General Assembly. 

• Current eduGAIN SG is more of an assembly and is not an effective decision making body.
• Current eduGAIN SG is limited to federation operators.
• Need for a smaller, elected focused SG?
• Need for technical support committee? Reference / advisory groups for other stakeholders?
  
• Need a better way to review and accept new federations. 
• What does the new model need to achieve? Decision? Oversight? Review?

Are there points missing?

Pal: Low turn up at meetings. Maybe create a liaison group with other constituencies.
Maarten: It should be a Federation of Federations, but to me it is more an Interfederation. An SG with a clear mandate. The constitution is weak, the baseline could help with that. Federation guidelines are needed. A central committee would be of vallue.
Peter: Totally agree. Raise the trust level.
Chris: Within the brand eduGAIN or feature set (good quality MD)?
Alan: Equicalency
Peter: Policy.
Koren: Would that also mean that the membership policies would be more alligned than today? Easier for SPs to federate with other eG members?
Alan: Related to opt-in/out.
Koren: Also we cannot know if federations adhere to the same standards.
Chris: Opt-in/out could be a significant change. This could be a recommendation.
Licia: Not main critical impact. Fundamental: lack of expectated behavior from IdP by SP. All posibilities are open. Minimal requirements would help.
Tomasz: What happens if federations are not up to that level? Are we (temporarily) kick members out?
Alan: Very much like the Web-model.
Alex: Baseline. The high level baseline was protocol agnostic. It can't be too strict to keep us from experimentation.

Davide: Governance. Implemention process would benefit from a stronger governance model. A steering committee that can move quickly in case of incidents or urgent developments. Quick and effective decision making. Also needed if we want to implement the baselines.
Chris: Operations advisory group?
Peter: Different trust levels? Like DFN: Basic and Advanced.
Albert: Baseline expectation: implementing and enforcing. Advocation and education. Wide gap between capability and maturity. Should be part of the core.
Federation of federations - most participants are IdP centric. Would a non-NREN federation be able to join eduGAIN. E.g. UN-Libraries federation → SP focussed. Is there a roll for eG?
Pal: It may help to be less IdP-centric. We need to think of eG governance as a wider (hierarchical) structure.
Chris: Sub-committee with specific responsibilities. Day to day business should be a small group.
Terry: Review and acceptence of new federations. More discussions with emerging federations on why they want to join eG. Why are we offering eG? Might help us focus on what eduGAIN is all about.
Chris: What is that renewed mission? Where is eduGAIN's remit? Where lies the problem.
Alex: I agree with Terry: we have leverage during the joining process to encourage Best Current Practice, good to engage early. Getting involved on the technical level is useful.
Chris: Technical mentorship? Duty of care / duty of activity.

Alan: Operations advisory group.
Davide: Couple of things. 1) Looking at new federations: limited number of entities. Setting up federation and joining eG at the same time. Learning as they go. 2) It takes a lot of time to pre-assess. 3) Assessment by SG takes a long time (2-3 weeks).
Licia: Process can be improved. Other part: resources. What do we do when technology is failing on new members.
Chris: Verification process.