> From: Lloyd Wood <l(_dot_)wood(_at_)eim(_dot_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk>
>> I'm quite happy with the IETF process. It has produced the Internet,
>> which is one of the most complex constructs on this planet.
> The Internet predates the IETF. The first IETF meeting of 21 people was
> in 1986
We kept changing the names a lot in the early days. The early IETF meetings
were not any different from the GADS, INARC, and INWG meetings which preceded
them.
> and there were already close to a thousand RFCs by that point
Most of which (the first 800 or so) relate to NCP (the old protocol of the old
ARPANet) based stuff.
> including all the important stuff.
Yeah, not that irrelevant stuff like BGP (1105 et al), PPP (1134 et al), CIDR
(1338 et al), DHCP (1531 et al), etc, etc - without which the Internet of
today simply could not exist.
I haven't even bothered to list OSPF, SNMP, POP, IMAP, and a host of others
which were wholly-IETF-produced protocols, since they are arguably less
critical, although still highly useful.
The IETF has of course changed a lot (in many ways not for the better, sadly)
as it grew. So did the Internet itself (ditto). If you have a good idea on how
to engineer today's Internet with a group of the size of the old IETF (which
would most likely exclude you as well as almost everyone else on this list, of
course) I'm sure we'd all love to hear it.
Noel