At 05:45 PM 2/14/00 -0700, Vernon Schryver wrote:
In other words and politically correct pretense asside, the IETF is not
an international organization. Despite its posturing, the IETF is a U.S.
or perhaps North American organization that welcomes non-U.S. participants
and occasionally spends a lot of its U.S. participants' time and money to
try to make people outside of North America feel welcome.
As a non-US IETF participant, I found this statement mildly insulting. But
then I have to ask myself "why?". It is true that a majority of IETF
participation is US-based. It is true that the IETF secretariat is wholly
US-based. It is true that the IETF is an outgrowth of a US national
organization. So on the face of it, your statement appears entirely true.
But I am still uncomfortable with it. It implies that, somehow, any non-US
participant is somehow a second class citizen, who is permitted to attend
purely as a concession by the US elite whose organization this is. Maybe
that also is true -- but I don't have to like it. I very much prefer the
"pretense" that the IETF is an organization that provides technical
direction for a truly global facility, and that it aspires to do so for the
benefit of all the world's people, with equal status and consideration
allowed to any who can participate, from wherever they may originate.
#g
--
------------
Graham Klyne
(GK(_at_)ACM(_dot_)ORG)