Subject: RE: [newtrk] "Is IETF Primarily a Standards Organization?"

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:48:40 +0200

Keith,

> My belief is somewhat different - it is that IETF primarily exists to 
> facilitate the Internet working well for a wide range of purposes, and 
> that IETF employs various means to this end, of which the production of 
> technical standards is only one.

This is somewhat of a curious statement - at least to me? What does
the IETF do to faclitate the running of the Internet - besides
making some technical standards and documents?  

John

.
newtrk resources:_____________________________________________________
web user interface: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk.html
mhonarc archive: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/index.html

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 08:56:06 -0500

> making some technical standards and documents?

actually, quite a bit.  documents are our visible output, but a lot of 
valuable things happen because IETF also serves as an informal 
information conduit.

(note also that "facilitating the internet working well" isn't quite 
the same thing as "the running of the Internet".)

.

---

From: mark seery <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 08:32:31 -0800

> mhonarc archive: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/index.html
Of course the IETF serves as informal conduits for a variety of things, 
and of course it can always take on many more other tasks. But none of 
this is an argument for what the "primary" function of the IETF is. All 
it does is serve to illustrate what actually happens in many WGs, a lot 
of time and energy is spent arguing around the edges or semantics of an 
issue rather than focusing on the actual issue at hand - the solution to 
which there is no consensus, but I suspect is a large part of the 
motivation for why some would like chairs to be more active/empowered. 
It is kind of like the network trust issue, actors can police 
themselves, or the alternative is not desired but somewhat inevitable.

.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 12:10:45 -0500

>> actually, quite a bit.  documents are our visible output, but a lot 
>> of valuable things happen because IETF also serves as an informal 
>> information conduit.
>>
> Of course the IETF serves as informal conduits for a variety of 
> things, and of course it can always take on many more other tasks. But 
> none of this is an argument for what the "primary" function of the 
> IETF is.

I disagree.  If we were to decide, that our primary function were to 
produce standards, then we would use that as an argument to avoid 
producing other useful kinds of documents.  Even if we decided that our 
primary function were to produce documents (which is a lot closer to 
the truth) then it would serve to limit ourselves far beyond what we do 
now.  We should define our primary function in terms of our intent, not 
in terms of our visible products.

> All it does is serve to illustrate what actually happens in many WGs, 
> a lot of time and energy is spent arguing around the edges or 
> semantics of an issue rather than focusing on the actual issue at hand

not what I was referring to at all.  A glimpse of what I was referring 
to is reflected in the oft-repeated notion that a great deal of useful 
work gets done in the hallways during an IETF meeting - certainly not 
just in the WG meetings.

.