ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

RE: NOMCOM term limits... Re: Now there seems to be lack of communicaiton here...

2006-09-05 09:02:33
    > From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker(_at_)verisign(_dot_)com>

    > .. the IETF has yet to face the fact that major infrastructure changes
    > such as IPv6 and DNSSEC require much closer attention to marketting and
    > deployment than is currently the case.

True.

    > We are all engineers and as engineers our preference for a management
    > regime is likely to be an environment where there are no fixed
    > deadlines, no accountability and endless scope for tinkering with
    > details of the design. The IETF management procedures should hardly be
    > a surprise therefore.

Interesting point.


    > The point of NOMCON was to maintain power in the hands of the
    > establishment and to ensure that there was no effective means of
    > accountability.

This is flat-out incorrect. The NomCom was created *precisely* to bring
accountability to I* management positions, in the wake of the IAB's
problematic actions at the time of the CLNP recommendation.

Yes, the NomComm structure does retain control of I* management positions
within the I* community, but what are the other options: give them over to
national governments (as the ISO does), or the UN? Somehow I doubt that
would improve the results.

If what you're really saying is that what you don't like is that *you* don't
have any influence over the results, I'm not sure that the rest of us would
agree that that's a problem.


    > The problem here is that we are now running an infrastructure that a
    > billion people and about half of international commerce depends upon.

Yes, that explains why IPv6 deployment has been so swift.

The IETF isn't in charge of hardly anything. The vendors, ISP's and even the
users (q.v. IPv6) all have a lot more influence - not to mention governments,
and the legal systems of the various countries (e.g. look at wiretapping in
the US, and the Great Firewall of China).

The IETF has one (limited) role to play, which is to develop open standards
(i.e. ones you don't have to sign a contract to read/use) in an open way
(i.e. no closed rooms). There is some disagreement on how good a job it does
on that (my take is that it's pretty good on both openness axes, but the
technical quality sometimes is lacking), but that's all it really does.


    > The security of that infrastructure is unacceptable and throwing
    > cryptography at it is not going to be the answer.

An interesting technical point (I agree it's not the whole answer, but it
is part of the answer), but let's take it up once the useless poliics has
died down.


    > The current IETF management procedures may meet the needs of some but
    > they do not meet the needs of those people who have a different scope
    > and a different vision of what the Internet should be, a vision and a
    > scope that match what the Internet is today and will be in the future.

The rest of us apologize for being stupider, and of more limited vision,
than you.

        Noel

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>