I spent the first many years of my professional life overseas working as
a Linguist writing and speaking other people's languages. Even though my
own proficiency was inadequate by their standards, I relied upon
talented native speakers to enhance my publications so that they became
well written in the target language. This is what the IETF also needs to
do.
The IETF authors needn't be very proficient in English, but they need to
be proficient enough to coherently explain their technical points so
that others can understand them. What is needed is to ensure that
somebody, with the authors' oversight, is enlisted to improve the drafts
so that the ultimate IETF documents themselves are in very good English.
Because the IETF is now International, all the IETF documents must be in
well-written English because we now come from so many languages and
cultures. It is hard enough dealing in foreign languages without
exacerbating the problem for the non-native English speaker by asking
them to understand garbled versions of English. If it is difficult for
the native English speaker to understand, it is much worse for the
non-Native speakers (unless they happen to speak the same language as
the garbler).
BTW, some native English speakers also produce horrid documents because
they are poor writers. These individuals also need to leverage editors
who can translate their thoughts into coherent English.
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