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Re: IETF Adelaide and interim meetings for APPS WGs

2000-02-15 10:40:03
From: Graham Klyne <GK(_at_)Dial(_dot_)pipex(_dot_)com>

In other words and politically correct pretense asside, the IETF is not
an international organization.  ...

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.

Except for the cognitive dissonance caused by the political fiction,
why feel insulted?  There are many non-U.S. institutions that variously
refuse, deign to allow, or eagerly invite and encourage participation
by U.S. citizens.  If the IETF only grudgingly allowed non-U.S.
participation, you might have reason to feel insulted.

The purpose of political correctness is to allow people to ignore and
not deal with inconvenient facts.  That more than one person found my
statement offensive instead of silly shows its accuracy.  Indignation
is the mildest reaction to attacks on political correctness.  In the
U.S. we laws against disturbing some fig leaves, the Constitution not
withstanding.  I'll not be specific, since those messes are irrelevant,
and I don't want to be lynched.

                                     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.  

From where are the notions of "US elite" and "second class"?  None of the
real IETF participants I've met have considered themselves members of an
elite, aside from occasional weaknesses in suffering fools gladly.  Like
many U.S. institutions, the IETF has viewed non-U.S. participants as
wonderful, as showing the IETF matters.  Recall that the cachet of non-U.S.
origin was a major part of the attraction of the ISO OSI protocol suite.

                                                 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.

Exactly.


] From: John Stracke <francis(_at_)ecal(_dot_)com>

] In other words, the pretense is self-fulfilling: by claiming (and striving) to
] be global, the IETF avoids driving away non-US participants, which makes the
] IETF more truly global.

I don't know about self-fulfilling, but eventually the IETF might
become an international organization.  If it avoids the worst
aspects of the ITU and the U.N., that could be a good thing.

The biggest obstacle to the IETF becoming more international are the
meetings, no matter where they are held.  A major reason the IETF is
as international as it is is its history of emphasizing email discussions.
It can be hard to notice national origin in email.  As that emphasis
declines (and it has significantly in practice if not rule), the IETF
risks becoming more instead of less insular and elitist.  That a
meeting in Washington is a long trip from Japan is not mitigated by
the distance to Australia from Europe.  SMTP doesn't care.


Vernon Schryver    vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com



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