Dean Willis wrote:
The question: does meeting in China do more to further the goal of
getting past PRC (and others) deplorable policies than does meeting
elsewhere AND LETTING THE WORLD KNOW WHY WE ARE NOT MEETING IN CHINA.
Dean,
Sorry, but that is very much *not* the question. As a group the IETF has no
such goal.
We have a goal of doing excellent technical work that enables new capabilities
and better reliability and performance. We have no goals of "getting past" any
government's policies. The closest we come to such an issue is the goal of
equally not counting government policies as dictating particular technical
choices in our work.
What is distinctive about the IETF's culture for pursuing its work is how
grossly undisciplined our process is, in the trenches. Over the years, we have
packaged it nicely with higher-level rules, but the moment-to-moment exchanges
are by random folks who make random statements. We tolerate the certainty of
entirely inappropriate statements that are misguided, offensive, political
and/or personal for the occasional wonderfulness of spontaneity.
Signal-to-noise has always been poor in the IETF, but we've seen enough benefit
in its unruliness to warrant retaining the model, rather than embracing the far
more staid and structured style of other standards groups.
With respect to making an organizational decision, the problem with the contract
language is its import with respect to this basic way the IETF does its work. I
think it essential that we not confuse this with anyone's views about a
country's politics.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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