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Re: Less Corporate Diversity

2013-03-20 18:21:18
Jari Arkko wrote:

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.

I'm far from convinced that the IETF would be "better off" with strong
diversity (company-wise and cultural-wise).  This probably begs for
clarification how we define "better off" in the first place.

The more diverse the "culture", the higher the probability for
miscommunication (misunderstanding and taking offense).

The more more diverse the (interests) of the affiliations of IETF
participants and IETF leadership, the hotter the dicussions typically
burn on contentious issues (ratholing).  That is at least my very
personal perception (over the past 18 years, but admittedly from
just a few WGs in the security area, that are probably not representative
of the IETF in general).

This does *NOT* mean that that I am opposed to diversity in any way.

But I do not believe that more diversity will unconditionally improve the
situation.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W7qnSgy4xWo/TI_htYJ9pqI/AAAAAAAAADM/AdNqCzCBz14/s640/Too+many+cooks+spoil+the+broth.jpg

While I agree that it helps avoiding a "few big vendors" bias.
is this really a significant problem _today_, adversely affecting a
non-marginal amount of the current IETF output, and in a fashion where
simply more diversity in the I* leadership would bring a noticable
improvement--without that same change adversely affecting the amount
and quality of the *other* IETF output?


-Martin