On Friday, April 25, 2014, Miles Fidelman wrote:
Dave Crocker wrote:
With respect to getting work done, this is a bottom-up organization, not
a top-down one. (That's why I think Area "Director" is a serious misnomer
and Area "Facilitator" would be far more accurate.)
But it seems pretty clear that people regard the IETF as
a bit more than that. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do.
Yes, there is quite a bit of mythology about the IETF. Sometimes it
borders on mysticism...
Bottom up is generally a good thing, and that's certainly been IETF's
traditional modus operandi. But... in that IETF is the official standard
body for the Internet - and it's ultimately the standards that hold the
Internet together -- isn't the real discussion about:
1. Are the emerging scale, scope, complexity, and issues involved in
Internet operation/management/<your favorite term> highlighting the limits
of that bottom-up (or perhaps, arms-length) approach to the way IETF is
playing its role?
That role is done by IETF WGs, that makes WGs very important to represent
the approach of bottom-up-decision-making. Just or General Area has no
WGs!!!
2. Are there changes needed?
We need to think of our IETF areas more seriously, and we need some WGs in
the IETF general area to represent bottom-up-consultations. WGs that make
more procedure drafts for IETF within the big changes of the internet in
future.
AB