--On Thursday, 14 December, 2000 19:06 -0600 Matt Crawford
<crawdad(_at_)fnal(_dot_)gov> wrote:
But in retrospect, one thing he said bothered me greatly. He
mentioned there were representatives of some five hundred
different organizations at this meeting. That too is
impressive. But it's that word "representative" I find
disquieting.
...
He also introduced the ADs as "<name> from <employer>" after
the IAB had been introduced solely by name. Throw the bum out!
:-)
Folks,
There is obviously a tension on the subject of company
affiliations and support, and there probably are no perfect
solutions. I'd like to make a few observations about it, with
the understanding that these are very much personal opinions and
not any sort of consensus policy.
First, I don't spend a lot of time planning exactly what words
I'm going to use at a plenary, and I assume that Fred doesn't
either. Both of us have many other things to do during the week
of IETF, things that I think are more important. I'll worry a
great deal when and if the community depends on the IAB and/or
the IESG to produce careful, scripted, presentations. We don't
coordinate the backgrounds on our slides, and we don't coordinate
the language we use, and differences in tone or words are more
likely the result of personal style or momentary impulse rather
than anything from which someone should deduce deep meaning.
I really didn't think about the IAB introducing ourselves without
employer affiliations. It just sort of happened, and I'm sure we
have identified our employers in the past. If the community has
a strong preference, we can try to remember to follow it, but,
really...
People who participate in IETF --whether in working groups or on
the IAB or IESG-- are doing so as individual experts. I've
periodically felt that we should have a "leave your company
affiliations at the door" banner.
But, even without "representing" anyone (that is not a word I
would have chosen had I thought about it, but see above), where
we work and what we do in our day jobs inevitably impacts our
experience and perspective. For example, since I left research
settings, I've worked for carriers, but never in operational
situations. That carrier background gives me some perspectives
that I wouldn't have if I had a background with, e.g., equipment
manufacturers. And people who work for manufacturers almost
certain have perspectives that I lack. That doesn't mean that
I'm "representing" my company, or carriers in general, in the
sense that "representation" was taken. But it may be something
the community would want to know about, especially if I make a
comment that implies that I might actually know something.
It is also probably more important that people understand
affiliations and perspectives of the IESG than of the IAB, since
the latter normally has no decision power in the standards
process.
And, as someone pointed out, companies who support participation
of people --especially without expecting much of company-specific
and short-term value back-- deserve as much credit and
acknowledgement as those who, e.g., sponsor parts of meetings.
And we typically don't acknowledge that contribution well enough.
I don't think company names on badges are harmful, and they do
help us identify each other (otherwise, we could carry the
principle to the limits and leave the names off too, replacing
them with randomly-assigned numbers).
Any chance we can get back to substantive technical work now?
john