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Re: Clarifying IETF process [Was: A private club]

2014-02-27 12:17:38
Hi Mary, John, Ted,
At 03:46 27-02-2014, Mary Barnes wrote:
[MB] That's a very easy statement for someone who is in the majority culturally and gender wise to make. I certainly hope you are in the majority. My perspective would be that we might actually make better progress with this "violent shift" that disrupts the current "social cohesion" by bringing in new ideas and different, more effective ways of working. [/MB]

As background information, I was the first WG Chair from the African and Latin American regions. There is now a WG Chair from the Latin American region. Adrian Farrel deserves credit for that. There was the following comment in the Latin American region [1] about that:

  "Es la única Working Group Chair que vive en Latam, no?"

I agree with the "bringing in new ideas and different, more effective ways of working". I am not inclined to follow the "IETF way"; I like to see results while keeping the people I work with happy.

At 06:57 27-02-2014, John Leslie wrote:
But many of us cannot afford the cost of three IETF weeks before we
see some return. (Especially those who need their employer to subsidize
three weeks of their time as well as the travel costs...)

   We cannot reasonably hope to change human nature -- least of all by
writing one RFC -- but surely we can do something to ameliorate this
economic disincentive?

The issue is not about changing human nature. There was a perfectly valid reason (in my opinion) for why there were three meetings (I did not preface the last word with "IETF" as I would then have to explain the history). I would be curious to read what others people think about the economic disincentive.

At 07:42 27-02-2014, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
trying to pariticpate remotely, it's possible, but you have to be
really, really good with your technical presentations, your evidence,
with sample implementations, perhaps a huge installed base, etc.

(And funny that, if you have all of this, it's likely that some
company will be quite willing to fund you to show up to an IETF
meeting.)

That's why there are a lot of Powerpoint presentations. Making fancy speeches at the microphone may capture the attention of some company. :-)

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. https://mail.lacnic.net/pipermail/ietf-lac/2013-November/000418.html