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Re: Ad Hoc BOFs

2010-08-01 03:48:14

On Aug 1, 2010, at 9:45 AM, Melinda Shore wrote:

Yoav Nir wrote:
Who's "folks"? A lot of people come to an IETF meeting, and are 
only following one or two of the working groups. That does not mean
that they sit in their hotel rooms for the rest of the meeting.
Instead, they pick what looks like interesting meetings, and go
there, with the hope of catching something interesting.

That's a really good point, actually.  I've also made a
point in the past of attending at least one session
completely unrelated to what I'm working on, in hopes of
learning something or getting new ideas or new associations
or something.  But still, it seems to me that there are
two somewhat but not quite orthogonal questions here: 1)
whether or not the increasing formalization of the bar
BOF reflects an increased expectation of attendance in
order to participate/advance work in the IETF, and 2) what
a working group meeting is.

I'll pass on answering #2, but as for #1, I think the bar BoF "institution" is 
mis-used as a working group of last resort. If I can't present my idea at a 
regular working group (because of time constraints or because it doesn't fit 
the charter of any current WG), and I can't present it at the area gathering 
(for lack of space), adding a "bar BoF" to the wiki seems to be the only way. 
In the end we don't get a lot of discussion - merely a presentation + Q&A 
session. And still the "right" people are often not there.

So formalizing a bunch of presentations is a good thing, although I think it 
needs to be done differently. 

Formalizing a bunch of people throwing ideas around (the "true" bar BoF) is not 
a good thing. 


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