Hi All,
As you request to open discussion I will give my thoughts. I like the
letter because it opens the opportunity to other Internet
cultures/experience into the IETF. It seems that current IETF culture
is not representing some cultures in the world for some reasons which
may not be known so far. However, this letter encourages thoes other
cultures and may solve some of the IETF challenges.
I think the letter mixes between Management and Leadership. IMHO, we
have management not leadership bodies. There are leaders and managers
in IETF, however, are all managers leaders? A leader has followers
without policies, but managers need regulations, tools, rules, and
policies. I RECOMMEND that IETF creates a new committee of leadership
(should represent all Internet user cultures not companies culture).
As from my MBA studies a leader does not need to be a manager any
person in the IETF can become one if holds followers.
IMHO, the only leaders in IETF are companies. However, for me there
are some individual names in IETF and WGs that I ask for their advise
to follow, because I feel that they got excellent reputation in my
judgement (i.e. reputation which is not always related to experience).
IMHO, as I was a new comer to IETF, I tried to take a new-comer
leadership initial role (i.e. may not have much followers of new
comers, but sure of 3 silent readers) in MANET WG by responding to all
request and ideas, and trying to open discussions for the progress of
work or knowledge of documents, because I felt that there are less
representing of management input. However, the management and some
participants (i.e maybe companies also) did not like that for some
reasons, and said that is wrong style, so I got a warning for such
inputs (volume, style, disruptive-to-managers). I think that the IETF
culture should give chance/opportunity to other leaders in the future
(it MAY be now only gives chance to its managers), therefore, the
letter is a good start, and I will try to write a I-D in future of my
experience in IETF, and hope others do or join together for the best
practice.
Regards
AB
(Please note that English is my second langauge and that my writting
style has no tone, and this input is not complain or shouting, just
reply to a request for discussion. I got ietf experience that some
participants consider the tone or style of input, which I think is not
a right practice on the list related to international-cultures, but
can be in f2f meeting).
++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++
The letter below was sent to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC
Board this morning, in an attempt to open a discussion of how to
increase the diversity of the IETF Leadership. We are sharing the
letter here to encourage community discussion of this important topic.
If you support this letter and would like to be added as a signatory,
please send e-mail to ietf.diversity at gmail.com, and your name will
be added to the list of signatures.
---
** An Open Letter to the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the ISOC Board **
Dear Members of the IETF Leadership,
We would like to call your attention to an issue that weakens the
IETF's decision-making process and calls into question the
legitimacy of the IETF as an International Standards Development
Organization: the lack of diversity of the IETF leadership.
In addition to the moral and social issues involved, diversity of
leadership across several axes (race, geographic location, gender
and corporate affiliation) is important for three practical reasons:
- It is a well-established fact that diverse groups are smarter
and make better decisions than less-diverse groups.
- Lack of diversity in our leadership becomes a self-perpetuating
problem, because people who are not represented in the IETF
leadership are less likely to dedicate their time and effort to
the IETF.
- The lack of diversity in the IETF leadership undermines our
credibility and challenges our legitimacy as an International
Standards Development Organization.
Unfortunately, despite a substantial increase in the number of IETF
leadership positions (from 25 to 32) and increasingly diverse
attendance at IETF meetings, the diversity of the IETF leadership has
not improved. In fact, it seems to have dropped significantly over
the past ten years.
For example, ten years ago, in February of 2003, there were 25 members
of the IETF leadership (12 IAB members and 13 IESG members). Of those
25 members, there was one member of non-European descent, there was one
member from a country outside of North America or Europe, and there were
four women. There were 23 companies represented in the IETF leadership
(out of a total of 25 seats).
In February of 2013, there were 32 members of the IETF leadership
(12 IAB members, 15 IESG members and 5 IAOC members). Of those 32
members, there was one member of non-European descent, there were no
members from countries outside of North America or Europe, and there
was only one woman. There were only 19 companies represented (out of
a total of 32 seats).
It is important to the continued relevance and success of the IETF
that we address this issue and eliminate whatever factors are
contributing to the lack of diversity in our leadership. We believe
that this is an important and urgent issue that requires your
immediate attention.
There are several steps that could be taken, in the short-term within
our existing BCPs, to address this problem:
- Each of the IETF leadership bodies (the IESG, IAB and IAOC)
could update the qualifications that they submit to the
Nominations Committee (through the IAD) to make it clear that
the Nominations Committee should actively seek to increase the
diversity of that body in terms of race, geographic location,
gender and corporate affiliation.
- Each of the confirming bodies (the ISOC Board for the IAB, the
IAB for the IESG, and the IESG for the IAOC) could make a
public statement at the beginning of each year's nominations
process that they will not confirm a slate unless it
contributes to increased diversity within the IETF leadership,
or it is accompanied by a detailed explanation of what
steps were taken to select a more diverse slate and why it was
not possible to do so.
- The ISOC President could continue to select Nominations
Committee Chairs who understand the value of diversity and are
committed to increasing the diversity of the IETF.
- The Nominations Committee could be offered resources or
training on the value of diversity, techniques to recruit a
more diverse candidate pool, and/or information about how to
minimize conflict-of-interest and personal bias in their
selection process.
We also feel that more substantial and longer-term changes may be
needed to fully address this issue. Therefore, we request that the
new IETF Chair assemble a design team (with diverse membership, of
course) to determine the causes of this problem and to make
suggestions for longer-term solutions to be considered by the IETF.
We are committed to working within the IETF to make the changes
that are needed to correct this serious issue.
Best Regards,
(In alphabetical order)
Bernard Aboba
Cathy Aronson
Alia Atlas
Mary Barnes
Mohamed Boucadair
Brian Carpenter
Stuart Cheshire
Alissa Cooper
Spencer Dawkins
Roni Even
Janet Gunn
Stephen Hanna
Ted Hardie
Sam Hartman
Fangwei Hu
Geoff Huston
Christian Jacquenet
Mirjam Kuehne
Olaf Kolkman
Suresh Krishnan
Barry Leiba
Ted Lemon
Kepeng Li
Dapeng Liu
Allison Mankin
Bill Manning
Kathleen Moriarty
Monique Morrow
Nurani Nimpuno
Matt Nottingham
Erik Nordmark
Karen O'Donoghue
Iuniana Oprescu
Jaqueline Queiroz
Hosnieh Rafiee
Pete Resnick
Lea Roberts
Simon Pietro Romano
Peter Saint-Andre
Eve Schooler
Rifaat Shekh-Yusef
Larissa Shapiro
Melinda Shore
Barbara Stark
Brian Trammel
Tina Tsou
Justin Uberti
Margaret Wasserman
Renee Wilson-Burstein
James Woodyatt
Lucy Yong
Jessica Yu
Lixia Zhang