On Mar 8, 2014, at 8:02 PM, mohammed serrhini <serrhini(_at_)mail(_dot_)ru>
wrote:
I think their exclusion is not fair
the effort must be made by the latter because he has put himself in the
skin of the other
and must to ask him self , what happen in the case if native language is the
official language IETF is not English
One of the frustrations of life is that even if we recognize that something is
unfair, there may be limited possibilities for addressing the unfairness. It
was once the case that French was the language of diplomacy, and an attempt was
made to formulate an artificial language, Esperanto, for use by diplomats as a
new "lingua franca."
For better or for worse, the Internet broke that process (I don't think there
was much hope for Esperanto anyway). So what do we do now? Try to revive
Esperanto as a language for expressing standards? Choose a different
language, so as to change the lucky recipient of privilege?
I can't speak for other IETFers, but I am keenly aware of the unfairness of the
current situation. But the only thing I know how to do to fix it is to help
people for whom english is not their first language to participate in english
anyway. There is a lot of interest within the IETF in doing this—it's not
just me.
If you have ideas for how to change this, please share them with us. But the
mere fact that I as a native english speaker happen to be privileged at the
moment is a fact with which I am already painfully familiar (although no doubt
much less painfully than the non-native english speakers).
If other IETFers are not aware of this, it would be good if they could wake up
to it. I would certainly advise native-english-speaking IETFers to really
exercise patience when communicating with non-native speakers, keeping in mind
exactly what you, Mohammed, have said: that the situation is unfair, and it is
incumbent on those of us in the privileged position to do our best to help
those who are not.
But is that all we can do? And if we do it to the best of our ability, will
it be enough? And, I hate to say it, given that not everybody will see it the
way you do or the way I do, what else can we do?