--On Friday, 30 September, 2005 19:00 -0400 Noel Chiappa
<jnc(_at_)mercury(_dot_)lcs(_dot_)mit(_dot_)edu> wrote:
> From: John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com>
> there are definitely forces within the WSIS process that
believe that > the IETF has outlived its usefulness, that
the development of Internet > protocols and technical
standards has become too important to be left > to a bunch
of undisciplined volunteer engineers (that is pretty close
to a quote)
Far be it from me to defend the IETF (of which I don't have
that high an opinion these days), but the historical irony
here is a bit too rich for me to pass up.
Those with very long memories will remember when the Internet
Working Group (the predecessor to the IETF) was told, by
another international body, to "roll up their their toy
academic network and take it home" (again, pretty close to a
quote, but I'm going from memory here; perhaps someone else can
correct my undoubtly-failing memory).
I don't know what the IETF will-be/is-being replaced by, but
one thing I think you can bet on it *not* being replaced by is
some standards body blessed by a bunch of international
bureacrats acting at the behest of their governments.
Been there, done that.
As I tried to indicate in my earlier note, I was trying to write
it in a very neutral fashion, just describing the forces at
work, rather than my opinion of them or their plausibility.
I do have that long a memory. Writing the note that way was
hard.
For those who do not know the history, are curious, or who might
find themselves in the position of advising those who are part
of these discussions, Appendix C to Marshall Rose's _The
Internet Message: Closing the Book with Electronic Mail_,
Prentice-Hall, 1993 makes extremely illuminating and
entertaining reading. With a dozen year's hindsight, I'd go so
far as to suggest that Marshall's observations about OSI and the
process that produced it were too optimistic.
john
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