Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 03/23/2013 02:27 AM, Bob Hinden wrote: To raise this discussion up a bit, I can think two other related reasons why there may be less corporate diversity in the IETF. The first is that it's possible to build applications and businesses that take advantage of the Internet without having to come to the IETF to standardize anything. The work of the IETF (and related organizations like W3C, IEEE, etc.) have made this possible. A success problem so to speak. The second is that it's very hard to make changes at the IP and transport layers and have them be deployed in scale given middle boxes. Many organizations have stopped trying and focus on making things work on top of http. This also doesn't require coming to the IETF. Perhaps not, but the extensive proliferation of middle boxes is arguably due to various failures within IETF, such as the failure to promote end-to-end security or the failure to extend the Internet architecture to accommodate legitimate needs of networks. Keith
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
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. Different doesn't generally mean good, in the peering case. I think different is good and bad news (who is responsible?), but mostly good to be detected, and hopefully corrected. It is bad for IETF to loose participation just because experience levels or peering are different. There are plenty of examples of monopoly PTTs or regulators engaging in behavior that impacts the usability of or availability of traffic exchange, there's all sorts of market failures, and there's deliberately uncompetitive practices from some of the participants. so when we look at the diversity of experience for network operators not all the diversity is a happy place. All diverse participants are good for IETF even if majority were uncompetitive, because no one is competitive to future experience. In history some scholars tried to confense the majority of their theories but were only understood in future because different minds. Some countries are in past experience and some are in present and some may be in future, but the IETF it is for all countries and it needs to make fast communication between future and past, or make availability for past components to communicate with future and verse versa, May be the solution can be if participants got into *faster speed of light* [RFC6921] [1] to make all countries participation in IETF received at right times or at the similar level of experience, that will make communicating with the IETF experiences easier, [1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg78376.html AB
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
this late but I thought I'd comment on one part of it. On 3/20/13 3:36 PM, Jari Arkko wrote: I think it is mostly market forces and historical reasons, and the development of the IETF to focus on more particular core aspects of the Internet (like routing) as opposed to what the small shops might work on. 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. Different doesn't generally mean good, in the peering case. There are plenty of examples of monopoly PTTs or regulators engaging in behavior that impacts the usability of or availability of traffic exchange, there's all sorts of market failures, and there's deliberately uncompetitive practices from some of the participants. so when we look at the diversity of experience for network operators not all the diversity is a happy place. Even if there may be less economic activity on networking on those continents, it would be good for us to understand the real situations around the world, as opposed to thinking the whole world is like where we live. Diversity = good in most cases, and increasing that goodness should be the goal. Jari
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Joel, Different doesn't generally mean good, in the peering case. There are plenty of examples of monopoly PTTs or regulators engaging in behavior that impacts the usability of or availability of traffic exchange, there's all sorts of market failures, and there's deliberately uncompetitive practices from some of the participants. so when we look at the diversity of experience for network operators not all the diversity is a happy place. I agree, of course. And the Internet community needs to work on getting to a better situation where such breakage exists. (My point on the diversity thread was that it is good to understand what the situations are in the world, not that those situations themselves are necessarily always good…) Jari
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
To raise this discussion up a bit, I can think two other related reasons why there may be less corporate diversity in the IETF. The first is that it's possible to build applications and businesses that take advantage of the Internet without having to come to the IETF to standardize anything. The work of the IETF (and related organizations like W3C, IEEE, etc.) have made this possible. A success problem so to speak. The second is that it's very hard to make changes at the IP and transport layers and have them be deployed in scale given middle boxes. Many organizations have stopped trying and focus on making things work on top of http. This also doesn't require coming to the IETF. My point in this, is that things have changed and it's not just about how the IETF works, makes decisions, takes on new work, cost of registration, travel, etc. Also, I am not making a value judgement here, only trying to acknowledge reality. Bob
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
--On Saturday, March 23, 2013 03:17 +0100 Martin Rex m...@sap.com wrote: Melinda Shore wrote: ... To me, this gatekeeping looks more like an act of self-defence. When I started going to IETFs in July 1995 (33rd IETF in Stockholm), there were only 2-hour slots and a number of WGs were using 2 slots. Over the years, the number of WGs BOFs grew, and some slots were split in two, fewer and fewer WGs meeted twice, and then additonal slots were added on friday, and it became more and more difficult to avoid conflicts (and for co-ADs to ensure that at least one of them could participate in WGs of their area). If that were true, then the ADs are doing a lousy job of it. If the goal were self-preservation as you suggest, then they would be drastically reducing the number of WGs, not merely being a little bit selective about new ones and allowing the work expansion you identify above. Consideration of that issue is not exactly new, see the long-expired draft-huston-ietf-pact or the slightly later draft-klensin-overload (they differ about the right approach but not about the problem or the need to push back on the regular expansion on the number of WGs). Chartering and running a WG has a significant process overhead, and requires (a) volunteers to do do the work and (b) volunteers with IETF process experience to drive the processes. Yes. See the drafts mentioned above. ... What IETF participants often do to route around this (that is at least a common practice in the security area), is to set up WGs sufficiently broad that not only a few WG items are discussed, but also a number of individual submissions on the side, only some of which are officially adopted as WG work items. And WG charters may sometimes be several years out of date. One of the problems of long running WGs is, however, that they may slow down and kill new work due to diversity over the years. PKIX is in such a position. Over the years a huge number of documents were created, and fixing defects in existing documents is roadblock by personal pride (for the original documents, including their defects) and the fear of loosing face when implementations in the installed base are suddenly identified as being defective. These are serious allegations that the Security ADs are not doing their jobs. Have you discussed the issues with appropriate Nomcoms? In SAAG meetings? Considered initiating recalls where you could identify your complaints in public. The root cause of the many defects is vast feature bloat. The original design principle perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove ... I happen to believe this, but have noticed that many WGs don't behave that way in practice. I've also noticed that the IETF sometimes seems to be slipping toward what we used to deride as the decision-making process of the ITU, characterized as resolving an apparent choice between two alternatives by putting both in. See the discussion in draft-resnick-on-consensus. john does not apply to PKIX. And the same problem is slowly creeping into other protocols of the IETF security area as well. TLSv1.2 is also suffering from feature bloat and a few defects, and pride is likely to prevent dropping of the goofed SignatureAlgorithm extension. -Martin
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Martin I don't want to prolong this sub-sub-sub-thread but really I can't leave this unchallenged: On 23/03/2013 04:46, Martin Rex wrote: Brian E Carpenter wrote: Martin Rex wrote: My impression of todays IESG role, in particular taking their balloting rules and their actual balloting results into account, is more of a confirming body of work that happened elsewhere (primarily in the IETF, typically in IETF WGs, but also individual or interest groups submissions from elsewhere, though the latter mostly for (re)publication as informational). IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where _each_ member reviews _all_ of the work, where _each_ forms his very own opionion, and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything). I think you've misinterpreted the IESG procedures a bit. The definition of a NO OBJECTION ballot in the IESG ranges from I read it, and I have no problem with it to I listened to the discussion, and I have no problem. I don't think so. I do think so, and if you didn't notice, I cut and pasted those phrases from the IESG's own web page. When I had a phone call with Russ Housley in early 2010, one of the things I said was that considering the amount of document that pass through the IESG, I would assume that not every AD was reading every document and that each AD might be reading only about 1/4 of them, and he replied that this could be near the real numbers. Who knows? When I was in the IESG, I would have said more like 50% but obviously YMMV. How is that incompatible with stating the NO OBJECTION ranges between I read it and I listened to the discussion? It's impossible to say objectively which of these extremes predominates, but when I was General AD, I tried to at least speed-read every draft, and studied the Gen-ART reviews carefully. Individual ADs vary in their habits according to workload, but my sense is that there is a strong sense of collective responsibility and definitely not a sense of rubber stamping. I do not think that the IESG is actively rubber stamping, and I know of a few past events where the IESG actively resisted to such attempts. However, the ballot process is made to err towards publication of a document. How often does the IESG *not* publish documents, and why? Why does that statistic matter? The fact that the IESG is actively and critically reviewing drafts is the end-stop for the main technical review, which is *of course* performed by the WG (except for the relatively rare non-WG drafts). If the IESG habitually rejected documents, it would tell us that the ADs and WG Chairs concerned were doing a lousy job. Considering the effort it took to convince IESG not to take an action / publish a document (IIRC draft-ietf-v6ops-6to4-to-historic-04.txt) then I'm much less convinced that having a ballot procedure that fails towards action/publication is such a good idea. That's a case I know intimately of course, having been author of the rival draft as well as the original 6to4 spec. I'd say it's a case that proves that our process is robust and that the IESG is doing exactly what it should - in that case, concluding that the draft, having received a pretty rough consensus in v6ops, did not achieve rough consensus in the IETF as a whole. It was a very close call, and there are still many people who think it was wrong (as you know if you watch the traffic on ipv6-...@lists.cluenet.de). Brian
RE: Less Corporate Diversity
Melinda is right about the gatekeeping role of the IETF. I have personally experienced that several times. Negotiating that gatekeeping may well be the hardest part of getting a work started. And it mostly has to do with one's capacity to convince the relevant AD of the value of the work. This is probably why the diversity of viewpoints in the steering group is most useful. -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Melinda Shore Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 7:33 PM To: Stephen Farrell Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Less Corporate Diversity On 3/22/13 6:28 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote: FWIW, seems to me you're describing one leg of the elephant each. From my experience I'd say you both actually have an appreciation of the overall elephant but that's not coming out in this kind of thread. Well, maybe, but it seems to me that he's lost track of the discussion. My argument is that the IESG has a gatekeeping function in taking on new work, that's based (aside from resourcing) on a set of values, their view of what's needed in the industry, etc. With a uniform IESG membership you're not going to get a rather uniform view of the overall context for IETF work, you'll lose perspective, and consequently there's value to having members who aren't almost all from big manufacturers. I'm not sure what Martin's point is, to be honest. Melinda
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/22/2013 8:24 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote: While I work for a very large shop now, for most of my career I have worked for small or mid-size shops. Even startups. And all saw value in sending me to IETF meetings. Personal reference can be helpful for suggesting lines of analysis, but not for obtaining the results of that analysis. As example of possible 'sampling bias', note that you were already targeting IETF attendance and a company that hires you is likely to therefore already make that decision. As usual, we need to be /very/ careful in treating ourselves as representative of a market segment. A better test of whether the IETF is seen as useful and cost-effective for small companies is to compare there proportion of presence in the IETF with their proportion of presence in the industry. Or look at the presence of /new/ participation by small companies, compared with the past, if we have the data. Of course, these sorts of comparisons takes more thought and more work... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 23/03/2013 18:00, Dave Crocker wrote: On 3/22/2013 8:24 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote: While I work for a very large shop now, for most of my career I have worked for small or mid-size shops. Even startups. And all saw value in sending me to IETF meetings. Personal reference can be helpful for suggesting lines of analysis, but not for obtaining the results of that analysis. As example of possible 'sampling bias', note that you were already targeting IETF attendance and a company that hires you is likely to therefore already make that decision. As usual, we need to be /very/ careful in treating ourselves as representative of a market segment. Precisely. A better test of whether the IETF is seen as useful and cost-effective for small companies is to compare there proportion of presence in the IETF with their proportion of presence in the industry. Or look at the presence of /new/ participation by small companies, compared with the past, if we have the data. Perhaps also include the organizations of all kinds, regardless of the size. Meanwhile, the definition of big and small can be made less rigid. Of course, these sorts of comparisons takes more thought and more work... If deemed valuable for the grand topic Diversity, it will be good to start preparing the analysis the sooner the better, since it takes time and requires efforts. -- Aaron d/
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On Mar 22, 2013, at 7:58 PM, Joe Touch to...@isi.edu wrote: On 3/22/2013 4:43 AM, Margaret Wasserman wrote: ... Granted, it may be that the list of _qualified_ candidates is less diverse than the set of all people who are willing to run. But, if so, that isn't because there aren't companies who are willing/able to ^ support candidates.. If you define diversity as many different *companies*, sure. There are organizations besides companies that used to participate in the IETF more. Joe, I was responding specifically to the assertion that we don't have more diversity in the I* (along various lines) because organizations are unwilling to sponsor those candidates for I* positions. The list of available candidates, as published by the nomcom, has been (for several years now) considerably more diverse than the people who are selected. There might be many valid reasons for that, including the possibility that the group of _qualified_ candidates is less diverse than the group of _available_ candidates, but the reason that we do not have more diversity on the I* is _not_ because we don't have a diverse pool of available candidates. Margaret
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 1:28 AM, Eric Burger ebur...@standardstrack.comwrote: Quite the contrary. I am interpreting a few of the 'diversity' posts as saying the IETF has fewer companies participating and much fewer smaller companies participating. And I am interpreting those posts as implying some nefarious plot on the part of large, Western, White-European-Male-Dominated companies to make it that way. I was just positing that the IETF might be reflective of the networking industry as a whole. My thesis, not at all proven and one I am not married to, is there are fewer *companies* out there. With fewer companies, we should not be surprised there are fewer companies participating. On the big side, a ton of major players either merged or left the business. On the small side, a bunch of companies either got acquired or went bankrupt. It's not a nefarious plot; all the meetings I've had with the rest of the Western White European Male Cabal haven't discussed the IETF at all, they're mostly on about the outrageous cost of fuel, these days. Quite honestly I'm thinking of leaving. But I suspect the idea that there are fewer companies when the word startup seems to automatically imply something Internet related is wrong. There's plenty of small companies, but engagement in the IETF is either irrelevant - because the IETF has slipped lower down the stack - or too expensive - because when you have fewer than 10 people in your organization, losing one engineer for half a day a week of IETF activity represents 1%, whereas if you've a company of even just a thousand, losing an engineer to the IESG full time is an order of magnitude less. That's not considering the cost as an issue, which it undoubtedly is for a small company, especially those outside the US for whom the travel costs are higher. I think the IETF leadership could solve the stack problem by being more proactive about encouraging standardization work to be brought into the IETF - I think having WebFinger here, for example, is very useful at making the IETF relevant to the startup audience, as it were, and there are several other of these small, high-stack protocols that would benefit from being worked on in the IETF and would benefit the IETF too. Dave.
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On Mar 22, 2013, at 5:47 AM, Dave Cridland d...@cridland.net wrote: But I suspect the idea that there are fewer companies when the word startup seems to automatically imply something Internet related is wrong. There's plenty of small companies, but engagement in the IETF is either irrelevant - because the IETF has slipped lower down the stack - or too expensive - because when you have fewer than 10 people in your organization, losing one engineer for half a day a week of IETF activity represents 1%, whereas if you've a company of even just a thousand, losing an engineer to the IESG full time is an order of magnitude less. That's not considering the cost as an issue, which it undoubtedly is for a small company, especially those outside the US for whom the travel costs are higher. These sorts of arguments would make more sense if it weren't the case that the candidate pool published by the nomcom is more diverse (in this and other ways) than the people who are selected by the nomcom. Granted, it may be that the list of _qualified_ candidates is less diverse than the set of all people who are willing to run. But, if so, that isn't because there aren't companies who are willing/able to support candidates... Margaret
Architecture (was: Re: Less Corporate Diversity)
On Mar 21, 2013, at 8:58 AM, Keith Moore mo...@network-heretics.com wrote: ... Another result is that the Internet architecture has gone to hell, and we're now spending a huge amount of effort building kludges to fix the problems associated with other kludges and the new kludges will almost certainly create more problems resulting in a need for more kludges later. Keith - While I won't argue with the symptoms you describe, I'm not sure I'd attribute it to lack of diversity. Both wildly diverse and relatively homogeneous communities can still bifurcate on multiple approaches to solving any given problem, and if that happens repeatedly and at multiple layers, then we inevitably end up with a bit of a mess... What you are seeing is more likely the result of applying relatively few architectural principles in weeding out possible solutions, i.e. more of the let a thousand protocols bloom and the market will decide approach generally taken when establishing working groups and deliverables. FYI, /John Disclaimer: My views alone. No new protocols or working groups were created by this email thread... (yet).
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/22/2013 4:43 AM, Margaret Wasserman wrote: ... Granted, it may be that the list of _qualified_ candidates is less diverse than the set of all people who are willing to run. But, if so, that isn't because there aren't companies who are willing/able to ^ support candidates.. If you define diversity as many different *companies*, sure. There are organizations besides companies that used to participate in the IETF more. Joe
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Melinda Shore wrote: Martin Rex wrote: As I understand and see it, the IESG is running IETF processes, is mentoring IETF processes (towards WG Chairs, BOFs, individuals with complaints/appeals), and is trying to keep an eye on the overall architecture, and put togethe the pieces from reviews they obtain from their trusted reviewers, such as directorates. They also gatekeep the work. If they don't believe that something is a problem, whether it because it's outside of the experience or expertise, or it really isn't a problem, it doesn't get chartered, it doesn't get sponsored, and it doesn't get published. If everybody serving that gatekeeper function comes from a similar background (western white guy working for a large manufacturer) it's going to tend to create certain biases in the work that's taken on. To me, this gatekeeping looks more like an act of self-defence. When I started going to IETFs in July 1995 (33rd IETF in Stockholm), there were only 2-hour slots and a number of WGs were using 2 slots. Over the years, the number of WGs BOFs grew, and some slots were split in two, fewer and fewer WGs meeted twice, and then additonal slots were added on friday, and it became more and more difficult to avoid conflicts (and for co-ADs to ensure that at least one of them could participate in WGs of their area). Chartering and running a WG has a significant process overhead, and requires (a) volunteers to do do the work and (b) volunteers with IETF process experience to drive the processes. Before allowing a new WG to start, ADs seem to make an assessment of whether there are sufficient volunteers of both kinds to do the work, whether there is sufficient expertise in the IETF to perform adequate review of the results and whether there is sufficient momentum in the effort (sufficiently large interest group, sufficiently strong desire) so that there is actually going to be results. What IETF participants often do to route around this (that is at least a common practice in the security area), is to set up WGs sufficiently broad that not only a few WG items are discussed, but also a number of individual submissions on the side, only some of which are officially adopted as WG work items. And WG charters may sometimes be several years out of date. One of the problems of long running WGs is, however, that they may slow down and kill new work due to diversity over the years. PKIX is in such a position. Over the years a huge number of documents were created, and fixing defects in existing documents is roadblock by personal pride (for the original documents, including their defects) and the fear of loosing face when implementations in the installed base are suddenly identified as being defective. The root cause of the many defects is vast feature bloat. The original design principle perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove does not apply to PKIX. And the same problem is slowly creeping into other protocols of the IETF security area as well. TLSv1.2 is also suffering from feature bloat and a few defects, and pride is likely to prevent dropping of the goofed SignatureAlgorithm extension. -Martin
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/22/13 6:17 PM, Martin Rex wrote: Before allowing a new WG to start, ADs seem to make an assessment of whether there are sufficient volunteers of both kinds to do the work, whether there is sufficient expertise in the IETF to perform adequate review of the results and whether there is sufficient momentum in the effort (sufficiently large interest group, sufficiently strong desire) so that there is actually going to be results. The value of the work, the likelihood of success, perceived need in the industry, and correctness are assessed. Sorry, Martin, but you're not describing how the IETF actually works. Melinda
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 03/23/2013 02:22 AM, Melinda Shore wrote: Sorry, Martin, but you're not describing how the IETF actually works. FWIW, seems to me you're describing one leg of the elephant each. From my experience I'd say you both actually have an appreciation of the overall elephant but that's not coming out in this kind of thread. S. PS: Martin does write more inflammatory text sometimes, but I think he knows and has previously ack'd that;-)
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/22/13 6:28 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote: FWIW, seems to me you're describing one leg of the elephant each. From my experience I'd say you both actually have an appreciation of the overall elephant but that's not coming out in this kind of thread. Well, maybe, but it seems to me that he's lost track of the discussion. My argument is that the IESG has a gatekeeping function in taking on new work, that's based (aside from resourcing) on a set of values, their view of what's needed in the industry, etc. With a uniform IESG membership you're not going to get a rather uniform view of the overall context for IETF work, you'll lose perspective, and consequently there's value to having members who aren't almost all from big manufacturers. I'm not sure what Martin's point is, to be honest. Melinda
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 21/03/13 1:33 PM, John C Klensin wrote: --On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 23:36 +0100 Jari Arkko jari.ar...@piuha.net wrote: I think it is mostly market forces and historical reasons, and the development of the IETF to focus on more particular core aspects of the Internet (like routing) as opposed to what the small shops might work on. I mostly agree. However, I see lots of activity in Apps and RAI, very little of which would seem to be core aspects of the Internet. Also, given the cost factor, the length of time it usually seems to take us to spin up a WG and get anything done is probably also a significant barrier: a small shop who could afford to send someone to a meeting or three might have neither the people-resources nor travel and meeting budget to commit to a few years of meetings. Hi John, I think that any small shop (whatever that means) would be put off if they sent someone to an IETF as it appears that it is dominated by the big vendors pushing their own agendas. Given that impression I imagine the small shop has better things to do with its resources. Mark.
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Melinda Shore wrote: Stephen Farrell wrote: FWIW, seems to me you're describing one leg of the elephant each. From my experience I'd say you both actually have an appreciation of the overall elephant but that's not coming out in this kind of thread. Since I personally participated only IETFs 33rd through 43rd plus 48th, the picture of the elephant might be somewhat outdated. Back then, I had many fine lunches and dinners with WG chairs, security AD and other folks from the security area. Well, maybe, but it seems to me that he's lost track of the discussion. My argument is that the IESG has a gatekeeping function in taking on new work, that's based (aside from resourcing) on a set of values, their view of what's needed in the industry, etc. With a uniform IESG membership you're not going to get a rather uniform view of the overall context for IETF work, you'll lose perspective, and consequently there's value to having members who aren't almost all from big manufacturers. I'm not so sure I would still call it gatekeeping these days. To me, it looks more like trying to hold back the flood. In 1995 there were fewer WGs, only 2 hours slots at Meetings, and some WGs were regularly using two slots. Today, some ADs might want to start a new WG in their area only when they can make an exiting WG in their area conclude. So you might be running in a competition to the WG that is currently being done, rather being subject to only the IESGs free and unconstrained value judgement. -Martin
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
I would have to disagree with: On 3/22/2013 11:17 PM, Mark Prior wrote: ... Hi John, I think that any small shop (whatever that means) would be put off if they sent someone to an IETF as it appears that it is dominated by the big vendors pushing their own agendas. Given that impression I imagine the small shop has better things to do with its resources. Mark. While I work for a very large shop now, for most of my career I have worked for small or mid-size shops. Even startups. And all saw value in sending me to IETF meetings. Yours, Joel
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Brian E Carpenter wrote: Martin Rex wrote: My impression of todays IESG role, in particular taking their balloting rules and their actual balloting results into account, is more of a confirming body of work that happened elsewhere (primarily in the IETF, typically in IETF WGs, but also individual or interest groups submissions from elsewhere, though the latter mostly for (re)publication as informational). IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where _each_ member reviews _all_ of the work, where _each_ forms his very own opionion, and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything). I think you've misinterpreted the IESG procedures a bit. The definition of a NO OBJECTION ballot in the IESG ranges from I read it, and I have no problem with it to I listened to the discussion, and I have no problem. I don't think so. When I had a phone call with Russ Housley in early 2010, one of the things I said was that considering the amount of document that pass through the IESG, I would assume that not every AD was reading every document and that each AD might be reading only about 1/4 of them, and he replied that this could be near the real numbers. It's impossible to say objectively which of these extremes predominates, but when I was General AD, I tried to at least speed-read every draft, and studied the Gen-ART reviews carefully. Individual ADs vary in their habits according to workload, but my sense is that there is a strong sense of collective responsibility and definitely not a sense of rubber stamping. I do not think that the IESG is actively rubber stamping, and I know of a few past events where the IESG actively resisted to such attempts. However, the ballot process is made to err towards publication of a document. How often does the IESG *not* publish documents, and why? Considering the effort it took to convince IESG not to take an action / publish a document (IIRC draft-ietf-v6ops-6to4-to-historic-04.txt) then I'm much less convinced that having a ballot procedure that fails towards action/publication is such a good idea. -Martin
RE: Less Corporate Diversity
Joel, the small shops you worked for were in the US, right? Lloyd Wood http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/ From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Joel M. Halpern [j...@joelhalpern.com] Sent: 23 March 2013 03:24 To: Mark Prior Cc: John C Klensin; ietf@ietf.org Discussion; Eric Burger Subject: Re: Less Corporate Diversity I would have to disagree with: On 3/22/2013 11:17 PM, Mark Prior wrote: ... Hi John, I think that any small shop (whatever that means) would be put off if they sent someone to an IETF as it appears that it is dominated by the big vendors pushing their own agendas. Given that impression I imagine the small shop has better things to do with its resources. Mark. While I work for a very large shop now, for most of my career I have worked for small or mid-size shops. Even startups. And all saw value in sending me to IETF meetings. Yours, Joel
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Martin, On 21/03/2013 00:51, Martin Rex wrote: ... My impression of todays IESG role, in particular taking their balloting rules and their actual balloting results into account, is more of a confirming body of work that happened elsewhere (primarily in the IETF, typically in IETF WGs, but also individual or interest groups submissions from elsewhere, though the latter mostly for (re)publication as informational). IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where _each_ member reviews _all_ of the work, where _each_ forms his very own opionion, and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything). I think you've misinterpreted the IESG procedures a bit. The definition of a NO OBJECTION ballot in the IESG ranges from I read it, and I have no problem with it to I listened to the discussion, and I have no problem. It's impossible to say objectively which of these extremes predominates, but when I was General AD, I tried to at least speed-read every draft, and studied the Gen-ART reviews carefully. Individual ADs vary in their habits according to workload, but my sense is that there is a strong sense of collective responsibility and definitely not a sense of rubber stamping. You could check the statistices I suppose, but it is normal that when there is a DISCUSS ballot, it is from an AD in another IETF area, and very rarely from the co-AD in the same area. That wouldn't happen if the IESG was a rubber-stamping machine. Therefore, diversity (on any axis) within the IESG can impact the results. But it is only at the output end, and diversity within WGs should be even more valuable in generating robust technical results. Brian
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 03/20/2013 07:20 PM, Martin Rex wrote: The more diverse the culture, the higher the probability for miscommunication (misunderstanding and taking offense). True, but without the diversity, the solutions provided by IETF are less likely to serve the interests of the extremely diverse Internet community.(And that's what we're here for.) 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). Perhaps, but what we commonly do in IETF now is artificially narrow the scope of discussions to generate the appearance of consensus without the reality. One result is that our protocols fail to meet the needs of a great many users. Another result is that the Internet architecture has gone to hell, and we're now spending a huge amount of effort building kludges to fix the problems associated with other kludges and the new kludges will almost certainly create more problems resulting in a need for more kludges later. (if you need an example, you need look no further than PCP and LSN) Keith
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 03/20/2013 08:51 PM, Martin Rex wrote: IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where_each_ member reviews_all_ of the work, where_each_ forms his very own opionion, and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything). IESG is the review body of last resort. When WGs do a poor job of review, especially cross-area review, the burden falls on IESG to take up the slack. The idea that IESG shouldn't actually do review is naive in the extreme, given the brokenness of IETF's structure. Keith
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
--On Thursday, March 21, 2013 08:53 + Brian E Carpenter brian.e.carpen...@gmail.com wrote: Individual ADs vary in their habits according to workload, but my sense is that there is a strong sense of collective responsibility and definitely not a sense of rubber stamping. You could check the statistices I suppose, but it is normal that when there is a DISCUSS ballot, it is from an AD in another IETF area, and very rarely from the co-AD in the same area. That wouldn't happen if the IESG was a rubber-stamping machine. Agreed. I also suggest that experience in putting both WG and individual submission documents through the process in the last several years (and experience that, as Melissa pointed out, Martin apparently doesn't have) strongly suggests much more intense scrutiny than would be consistent with rubber-stamping. From time to time, I'd suspected that some comments, especially editorial ones, are posted to prove to everyone that the AD involved actually did read the document. That pattern and associated discussions also strongly suggests that most ADs read or otherwise carefully consider most documents. Comments to prove that one has read the document or that are generated because, after doing all that work, one must have at least _some_ comment may be a problem, but, if so, it is different from the discussion on this thread. Therefore, diversity (on any axis) within the IESG can impact the results. But it is only at the output end, and diversity within WGs should be even more valuable in generating robust technical results. Yes. Over the years, I have been concerned about a different issue with IESG diversity. Today's IESG has 14 voting members with 12 different company affiliations and no company apparently supporting more than two ADs. That is actually not bad in either absolute terms or, I think, in comparison to the community. But we have had years in which company affiliations, presumed sponsorship, and industry sectors have been much more concentrated, possibly enough so to be fodder for antitrust actions focused on particular sets of decisions especially if industry partnerships and other relationships are considered. More diversity provides some inherent protection against that sort of problem as a useful side effect. Of course, that organizational diversity doesn't help with the 100% European or North American males within a moderately narrow age range dimensions of the broader issue. john
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Keith Moore wrote: Martin Rex wrote: IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where_each_ member reviews_all_ of the work, where_each_ forms his very own opionion, and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything). IESG is the review body of last resort. When WGs do a poor job of review, especially cross-area review, the burden falls on IESG to take up the slack. As I understand and see it, the IESG is running IETF processes, is mentoring IETF processes (towards WG Chairs, BOFs, individuals with complaints/appeals), and is trying to keep an eye on the overall architecture, and put togethe the pieces from reviews they obtain from their trusted reviewers, such as directorates. The idea that IESG shouldn't actually do review is naive in the extreme, Huh? I believe I never said nor implied this, and certainly never meant something like that. I also don't see how _more_ reviews could make things worse. I believe it would be naive to expect IESG to perform reviews all by their own, either not asking for or ignoring all other input and then VOTE in committe style. The way the IETF positions are defined and filled, biases of various ways are _inevitable_. They solution to this is to set up processes in a fashion that will produce good results even where there is strong bias of various kinds -- aka lack of diversity -- by distributing the work to other IETF leadership positions besides IESG and by putting in place controls that will likely notice and object when IESG decisions seem to exhibit bias, and procedures to deal with this. But once you structure processescontrols and distribute work in a fashion that makes it resilient to bias in I* positions, the whole issue of diversity will be much less of an issue for those positions. given the brokenness of IETF's structure. Brokenness usually suggests defects that could have reasonably been avoided. While there are certainly a number of features that each come at a cost, I'm not aware of an actual brokenness of the IETF's structure, i.e. something that could have been reasonably been avoided without loosing any benefits. -Martin
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/21/13 8:23 AM, Martin Rex wrote: As I understand and see it, the IESG is running IETF processes, is mentoring IETF processes (towards WG Chairs, BOFs, individuals with complaints/appeals), and is trying to keep an eye on the overall architecture, and put togethe the pieces from reviews they obtain from their trusted reviewers, such as directorates. They also gatekeep the work. If they don't believe that something is a problem, whether it because it's outside of the experience or expertise, or it really isn't a problem, it doesn't get chartered, it doesn't get sponsored, and it doesn't get published. If everybody serving that gatekeeper function comes from a similar background (western white guy working for a large manufacturer) it's going to tend to create certain biases in the work that's taken on. Melinda
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
From: Melinda Shore melinda.sh...@gmail.com If everybody serving that gatekeeper function comes from a similar background (western white guy working for a large manufacturer) To toy with Godwin's law for a moment - this sounds rather like western white guy physics... Noel
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
--On Thursday, March 21, 2013 17:23 +0100 Martin Rex m...@sap.com wrote: Keith Moore wrote: ... IESG is the review body of last resort. When WGs do a poor job of review, especially cross-area review, the burden falls on IESG to take up the slack. As I understand and see it, the IESG is running IETF processes, is mentoring IETF processes (towards WG Chairs, BOFs, individuals with complaints/appeals), and is trying to keep an eye on the overall architecture, and put togethe the pieces from reviews they obtain from their trusted reviewers, such as directorates. Not only does that not match closely what is specified in the various BCPs, but there is much to quibble about it in practice. Again, I strongly suggest that actual experience with how things work would be a lot better than suggesting changes on the basis of theorizing. ... I also don't see how _more_ reviews could make things worse. Actually, we have worked examples of that too. One problem typically arises when someone reads a document, doesn't understand it, but, having done the work, bogs document processing down with typographic and editorial issues that did not create ambiguity and that could easily be resolved by the RFC Editor. Had you said more competent, focused, and substantive reviews I would have agreed. I believe it would be naive to expect IESG to perform reviews all by their own, either not asking for or ignoring all other input and then VOTE in committe style. But this was exactly the expectation some years ago and continues to be the expectation of an ADs who have not established their own review support mechanisms. The way the IETF positions are defined and filled, biases of various ways are _inevitable_. They solution to this is to set up processes in a fashion that will produce good results even where there is strong bias of various kinds -- aka lack of diversity -- by distributing the work to other IETF leadership positions besides IESG and by putting in place controls that will likely notice and object when IESG decisions seem to exhibit bias, and procedures to deal with this. We more or less started with an IESG that was strictly a steering and management body with standards approval elsewhere (in the IAB of the time). We did away with that, putting document final review and approval in the IESG as well. The community has been extremely resistant to suggestions to change that. I agree with you that it would solve a number of problems but we might be the only two people who believe that making the change would be desirable on balance. Conversely, if you are convinced that there is real bias that led to particular unfair and incorrect decisions, the appeals process actually works very well. But once you structure processescontrols and distribute work in a fashion that makes it resilient to bias in I* positions, the whole issue of diversity will be much less of an issue for those positions. As indicated above, I don't think that restructuring is going to happen. Even if it did, it would merely reduce the possibilities for deliberate abuse and bias to distort the system. It wouldn't eliminate any of the other arguments for diversity, most of which apply even if everyone is operating completely in the open and in good faith. john given the brokenness of IETF's structure. Brokenness usually suggests defects that could have reasonably been avoided. While there are certainly a number of features that each come at a cost, I'm not aware of an actual brokenness of the IETF's structure, i.e. something that could have been reasonably been avoided without loosing any benefits. -Martin
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
draft-mrex-tls-secure-renegotiation-04 lists Martin Rex as one of the authors. According to the authors of RFC 6176 Martin Rex has reviewed that specification. According to the editor of RFC 4752 Martin Rex has contributed to the document. If being a RFC author is what matters I should stop commenting about drafts and focus on being a RFC author. A significant number of drafts from RFC authors fail to be adopted due to lack of socialization. If being Working Group Chair is what matters I should do whatever it takes to get that title. The title won't help me understand how to deliver the work. I welcome feedback from anyone. I do not bother about whether the individual is a RFC author or a Working Chair; any feedback is useful to me. In my opinion Martin Rex's contribution to the IETF is significant. That opinion is not based on what is written in a draft or a RFC, or because of a title. Regards, -sm P.S. The IETF is a place of many misunderstandings.
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/21/13 9:19 AM, SM wrote: I welcome feedback from anyone. All righty, then. I do think that when someone is offering an opinion on the role of the IESG in moving work through the IETF, it's helpful if they've actually brought new work to the IETF, socialized it, negotiated with ADs around creating a new working group or rechartering an existing one, etc. Because the IESG effectively functions as gatekeepers to taking on new work, it matters a lot that they have reasonably wide visibility into the industry and into real-world networking problems. Having an IESG in which everybody has pretty much the same background is not how you achieve that. It appears to be the case that people don't understand the gatekeeping role of the IESG in bringing new work into the organization unless they've experienced it directly. Melinda
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
--On Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:51 -0800 Melinda Shore melinda.sh...@gmail.com wrote: On 3/21/13 9:19 AM, SM wrote: I welcome feedback from anyone. All righty, then. I do think that when someone is offering an opinion on the role of the IESG in moving work through the IETF, it's helpful if they've actually brought new work to the IETF, socialized it, negotiated with ADs around creating a new working group or rechartering an existing one, etc. Because the IESG effectively functions as gatekeepers to taking on new work, it matters a lot that they have reasonably wide visibility into the industry and into real-world networking problems. Having an IESG in which everybody has pretty much the same background is not how you achieve that. It appears to be the case that people don't understand the gatekeeping role of the IESG in bringing new work into the organization unless they've experienced it directly. FWIW. I would add to the above that it is hard -- perhaps not impossible, but hard-- to understand the document approval role of the IESG and how it works in practice without experiencing it first hand. That experience could come from inside the IESG or as a WG Chair, author, or shepherd who gets to be on the front lines of the interactions. I think it is a problem that others in the community --especially those who end up on the Nomcom or making suggestions to it-- don't have that understanding those experiences bring, but it is a bit of a separate problem except when it gets tangled up in this sort of discussion. I, and I believe Melinda, have been pushing back on several of Martin's comments and a few of yours, not because you lack some particular credentials but because those remarks don't describe the workings of the IESG in its various functions as we understand and have experienced it. At least for me, every you haven't done X or you haven't been a Y comment isn't about qualifications to comment but is merely a hypothesis as to why our understanding of how the system works and yours and/or Martin's are different. best, john
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Quite the contrary. I am interpreting a few of the 'diversity' posts as saying the IETF has fewer companies participating and much fewer smaller companies participating. And I am interpreting those posts as implying some nefarious plot on the part of large, Western, White-European-Male-Dominated companies to make it that way. I was just positing that the IETF might be reflective of the networking industry as a whole. My thesis, not at all proven and one I am not married to, is there are fewer *companies* out there. With fewer companies, we should not be surprised there are fewer companies participating. On the big side, a ton of major players either merged or left the business. On the small side, a bunch of companies either got acquired or went bankrupt. Fred Baker and Keith Moore have it right: we need to attract new blood. On Mar 21, 2013, at 1:01 AM, Hector Santos hsan...@isdg.net wrote: On 3/20/2013 3:18 PM, Eric Burger wrote: How much is the concentration of corporate participation in the IETF a result of market forces, like consolidation and bankruptcy, as opposed to nefarious forces, like a company hiring all of the I* leadership? We have mechanisms to deal with the latter, but there is not much we can do about the former. I am not catching the question. Are you concern there is an increasing potential for a conflict of interest loophole the IETF may no longer afford to manage and control? We will always have Cooperative Competition. The IETF damage can only be to sanction the standardization of a problematic method or technology and/or the straggle hold of a market direction. Generally, the market will speak for itself. We need the market and technology leaders for the rest to follow, but the IETF role should continue to be the gatekeeper and watchdog for open and public domain standards. -- HLS
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 03/20/2013 12:18 PM, Eric Burger wrote: How much is the concentration of corporate participation in the IETF a result of market forces, like consolidation and bankruptcy, as opposed to nefarious forces, like a company hiring all of the I* leadership? We have mechanisms to deal with the latter, but there is not much we can do about the former. Sure you can - you can put in place formal requirements for disclosure and actually make licenses which are recallable for frauds or other bad acts in the process. The issue isnt whether the goal of the IETF is a laudable one or not - it clearly is, the issue is whether the IETF itself is responsible for actions which its infrastructure is used to control are allowed or not and what the issues for threshold of damages are. Bluntly this IETF has no statistical idea on any of these things because it has intentionally put in place controls which are either too complex to implement or are glad-handed and ignored like the BCP78/79 rules which say All parties speak regularly with their sponsors legal departments to keep them abreast on changes or things of interest in the standards process... (yeah right...). No really - its about time everything here got locked down so everything is open and a little-guy really can submit and promulgate a technology through standardization. Todd
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 03:18:24PM -0400, Eric Burger wrote: How much is the concentration of corporate participation in the IETF a result of market forces, like consolidation and bankruptcy, as opposed to nefarious forces, like a company hiring all of the I* leadership? We have mechanisms to deal with the latter, but there is not much we can do about the former. Having started in the IETF at a much smaller vendor, it's less a nefarious thing than it is a money thing. When you're talking about participation at the conferences, the cost of flying someone to the venue, paying for the conference fee and covering hotel can be a big burden for smaller companies. They then have to pick and choose which groups it makes sense to get a human to attend. Even on-the-list participation can be a financial burden. Someone has to spend a chunk of their time doing standards work instead of other things like code. I* leadership is even messier. IETF is effectively asking for half or more of the time of those people. They are effectively being given a form of patronage to do IETF work. -- Jeff
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
I think it is mostly market forces and historical reasons, and the development of the IETF to focus on more particular core aspects of the Internet (like routing) as opposed to what the small shops might work on. 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. Even if there may be less economic activity on networking on those continents, it would be good for us to understand the real situations around the world, as opposed to thinking the whole world is like where we live. Diversity = good in most cases, and increasing that goodness should be the goal. Jari
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 3/20/13 2:37 PM, Jeffrey Haas wrote: On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 03:18:24PM -0400, Eric Burger wrote: How much is the concentration of corporate participation in the IETF a result of market forces, like consolidation and bankruptcy, as opposed to nefarious forces, like a company hiring all of the I* leadership? We have mechanisms to deal with the latter, but there is not much we can do about the former. Having started in the IETF at a much smaller vendor, it's less a nefarious thing than it is a money thing. When you're talking about participation at the conferences, the cost of flying someone to the venue, paying for the conference fee and covering hotel can be a big burden for smaller companies. They then have to pick and choose which groups it makes sense to get a human to attend. Even on-the-list participation can be a financial burden. Someone has to spend a chunk of their time doing standards work instead of other things like code. I* leadership is even messier. IETF is effectively asking for half or more of the time of those people. They are effectively being given a form of patronage to do IETF work. +1 When I worked at a small vendor, I attended IETF meetings only when there was work happening directly related to what my company care about. I *might* have been able to be a WG chair, but there is no way I could have been an area director until after our small company was acquired by Cisco. Peter - -- Peter Saint-Andre https://stpeter.im/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.18 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJRSkK+AAoJEOoGpJErxa2pKAoP/ibKBeI4RBuP8dGnuFqOqALX JhgeStw0SMainyQ2YvLXXlFueQzAn3+mMpLa4OsnsvaBSZMhX/hvxDbRD5OA9rFT Jock8WteQHJwi9pj4GIVA5Ck9JctxHeHXpe33tDVlDcoqYyGafO9Y+r+JZqnwjYo Ao6iNLz6MMOXnhZwbWcnLjP5AcA72R0oevdB6h01F00gqhi2E90Pao/2Lup6V7q8 6qP6S5ZqCxnio/pSMMorv3tyDl3FvARn03vLhyx1E1BAT0Dyz8aikhr3uG/ajqE0 2b51YxJdfnvnAyEEkAAtpk7RMkgTV3be5ghB0cMQMwAClwKcbQ0VUtlUEEemi0rO LFEWHQxEuk+phTC93NJN/a5topZAQ2401uTl+prye8niT05H/aSx+7oGXOlLNjXQ 5SCmCExcFzitVDx3O3vUaBbmLKdK0l3Tn7kBGAV4XRhLRXkDaY7lA9+ML19olK7J x9jvqvJs2CaD3+iJoss2LqNJikIjQ0MOeECwVa8RKZzXCaW35WxP/QQC44teHw3S lhra+sglrCiiElW7dBp62Jm8o9Qj+wsLBHL881R/rDAm10QmpJ+onbRc2AM0mgVM JY/S4wpLjtEqDVoj9f80DuuTAEMj4FfhaKAcImLVOMJCQ8oas7fPZ9K/t2abus9j wWCL8CONclaQ81gZHrEt =X3gZ -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
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/ADM/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
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/20/13 3:20 PM, Martin Rex wrote: 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? I think it would improve the quality of stewardship and review, and the understanding of what's going on in the industry and where the needs and priorities are. I also think that the very distinct western bias in the leadership means that there's a distinct lack of familiarity with deployment and management models being used (or assumed) by a growing portion of IETF participants. I also expect that I am not the only participant who's a consultant and at least partly self-funded and regularly coming to meetings, but there will always be folks saying that we don't exist, even as people seem to not want to acknowledge that there were a lot of women who'd accepted IESG nominations this cycle. But, I do think that given our decision-making structures and so on, and given the speed with which people I thought knew better zoomed over to the NO QUOTAS! place when the issue was raised, this situation is basically irreparable. Melinda
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
Melinda Shore wrote: Martin Rex wrote: 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? I think it would improve the quality of stewardship and review, and the understanding of what's going on in the industry and where the needs and priorities are. I also think that the very distinct western bias in the leadership means that there's a distinct lack of familiarity with deployment and management models being used (or assumed) by a growing portion of IETF participants. I'm having difficulties to follow (but I'm also new to diversity discussions). It is my understanding that work in the IETF is done by individual participants within Working Groups or as individuals. Review seems to happen within WGs, and the review work(load) seems to have significantly shifted from ADs to Directorates. The IETF rough consensus model with its (1- or 2-level) Last Calls is intended to ensure resolution of objections or technical concerns, even when raised by only one single IETF participant. My impression of todays IESG role, in particular taking their balloting rules and their actual balloting results into account, is more of a confirming body of work that happened elsewhere (primarily in the IETF, typically in IETF WGs, but also individual or interest groups submissions from elsewhere, though the latter mostly for (re)publication as informational). IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where _each_ member reviews _all_ of the work, where _each_ forms his very own opionion, and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything). But, I do think that given our decision-making structures and so on, and given the speed with which people I thought knew better zoomed over to the NO QUOTAS! place when the issue was raised, this situation is basically irreparable. The leadership in the IETF is not limtied to I* positions. To me, it appears that WG chairs (can) have (if they so desire)at least as much impact on actual work that happens in WGs as the responsible AD, and directorate review of documents is at least as relevant as reviews of individual ADs (if not more), and both of these functions (WG Chair) and directorate participation seem to require much less timemonetary investments from IETF participants than I* functions, and the positions outnumber the I* positions probably by a magnitude. -Martin
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/20/13 4:51 PM, Martin Rex wrote: I'm having difficulties to follow (but I'm also new to diversity discussions). It is my understanding that work in the IETF is done by individual participants within Working Groups or as individuals. Review seems to happen within WGs, and the review work(load) seems to have significantly shifted from ADs to Directorates. With all due respect, I can't find any RFCs you've authored or working groups you've chaired. Or, for that matter, any current internet drafts. I absolutely could have missed something and I hope that if I'm wrong you'll correct me. However, if I'm not wrong, you haven't been through the process of bringing work into the IETF, socializing it, and trying to get it published or adopted, in which case you're missing a lot. Melinda
RE: Less Corporate Diversity
An ad-hominem argument, Melinda? really? Lloyd Wood http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/ From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Melinda Shore [melinda.sh...@gmail.com] Sent: 21 March 2013 01:01 To: m...@sap.com Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Less Corporate Diversity On 3/20/13 4:51 PM, Martin Rex wrote: I'm having difficulties to follow (but I'm also new to diversity discussions). It is my understanding that work in the IETF is done by individual participants within Working Groups or as individuals. Review seems to happen within WGs, and the review work(load) seems to have significantly shifted from ADs to Directorates. With all due respect, I can't find any RFCs you've authored or working groups you've chaired. Or, for that matter, any current internet drafts. I absolutely could have missed something and I hope that if I'm wrong you'll correct me. However, if I'm not wrong, you haven't been through the process of bringing work into the IETF, socializing it, and trying to get it published or adopted, in which case you're missing a lot. Melinda
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
--On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 23:36 +0100 Jari Arkko jari.ar...@piuha.net wrote: I think it is mostly market forces and historical reasons, and the development of the IETF to focus on more particular core aspects of the Internet (like routing) as opposed to what the small shops might work on. I mostly agree. However, I see lots of activity in Apps and RAI, very little of which would seem to be core aspects of the Internet. Also, given the cost factor, the length of time it usually seems to take us to spin up a WG and get anything done is probably also a significant barrier: a small shop who could afford to send someone to a meeting or three might have neither the people-resources nor travel and meeting budget to commit to a few years of meetings. 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 have run across another example fairly often that was, I think, mentioned briefly last week. Most of us are used to network connections of very high bandwidth and quality. Our protocol designs and implementations are developed and tested on those networks and, usually, on the very latest and most powerful equipment. The IETF would almost certainly benefit from vigorous input from people whose environments are characterized by longer delays, serious congestion, packet fragmentation, and so on. Without them, I fear that implementations of a lot of our work, and maybe the work itself, will not be acceptable in lower-end or more congested networks or from computer systems more typical of that average Internet user and that they will not have the level of robustness that ought to be one of the Internet's strengths. Even if there may be less economic activity on networking on those continents, it would be good for us to understand the real situations around the world, as opposed to thinking the whole world is like where we live. Diversity = good in most cases, and increasing that goodness should be the goal. Indeed. And, taking the comment above a step further, one need only go to a sufficiently rural area in many developed countries --one that is served exclusively by overloaded high orbit satellite links (with the delay times that implies) -- to encounter the problem even though people from other continents are more likely to be articulate about the issues and easier to get to the IETF then those rural users. john
Re: Less Corporate Diversity
On 3/20/2013 3:18 PM, Eric Burger wrote: How much is the concentration of corporate participation in the IETF a result of market forces, like consolidation and bankruptcy, as opposed to nefarious forces, like a company hiring all of the I* leadership? We have mechanisms to deal with the latter, but there is not much we can do about the former. I am not catching the question. Are you concern there is an increasing potential for a conflict of interest loophole the IETF may no longer afford to manage and control? We will always have Cooperative Competition. The IETF damage can only be to sanction the standardization of a problematic method or technology and/or the straggle hold of a market direction. Generally, the market will speak for itself. We need the market and technology leaders for the rest to follow, but the IETF role should continue to be the gatekeeper and watchdog for open and public domain standards. -- HLS
