I think it is mostly market forces and historical reasons, and the development
of the IETF to focus on more particular core aspects of the Internet (like
routing) as opposed to what the small shops might work on.
But I think we are missing a bit of the point in this discussion. I do not feel
that we need to prove we are somehow "no worse" than industry average. The
point is that *if* we had more diversity along many of the discussed lines,
we'd be far better off. For instance, having people from multiple organisations
provide input to a last would be preferable to just a few. Similarly with the
other dimensions of diversity. When I talked to some of the ISOC fellows last
week, I realised peering is very different on different continents. Even if
there may be less economic activity on networking on those continents, it would
be good for us to understand the real situations around the world, as opposed
to thinking the whole world is like where we live. Diversity = good in most
cases, and increasing that goodness should be the goal.
Jari