Subject: [arch-d] What's up with the Decentralized Web Summit 2018?

From: [email-masked] (Henry S. Thompson)
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 15:39:18 +0100

I'm not great with name recognition, but looking at the speaker and
attendance lists for this event (31/7--2/8, San Francisco, hosted by the
Internet Archive) [1], I don't see anyone who I recognise from the IETF,
nor does anyone list their affiliation as the IETF, which I find a
bit. . .odd.

Are there components of what might become the Decentralized Web already
submitted to the IETF in some form?  I don't see any sign of IPFS [2]
coming here, for instance... Ah, it does at least say "Some day we will
hopefully transform these specs into RFCs" in their github specs repo [3].

I do understand we don't control who brings their work to us, but _if_
this is something which is going to get real traction, it might be
better to be involved sooner rather than later.

Or am I confused in thinking this is any of our business?

Thanks,

ht

[1] https://decentralizedweb.net/
[2] https://ipfs.io/
[3] https://github.com/ipfs/specs
-- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: [email-masked]
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
 [mail from me _always_ has a .sig like this -- mail without it is forged spam]

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 17:05:43 +0200

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 03:39:18PM +0100,
 Henry S. Thompson <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 35 lines which said:

> I don't see anyone who I recognise from the IETF, nor does anyone
> list their affiliation as the IETF, which I find a bit. . .odd.

Well, IETF is not a home, unlike the W3C, nobody (except the IAD?)
works "at IETF".

The only name I know from the IETF is Wendy Seltzer who is quite
active at IETF.

> Are there components of what might become the Decentralized Web
> already submitted to the IETF in some form?

Most IETF protocols are decentralized but, true, stuff like IPFS or
BitTorrent or Ethereum are typically not at the IETF today.

> I do understand we don't control who brings their work to us, but
> _if_ this is something which is going to get real traction, it might
> be better to be involved sooner rather than later.

Also, it seems this summit is not entirely technical. I see in the
speakers people with titles like "strategy guru", which seems to imply
there is some "high-level" talk.

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From: Marie-Jose Montpetit <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:16:04 -0400

There is a decentralized network proposed research group in the IRTF (dinrg).

And I agree these ‘Summits’ are often top level even marketing oriented.

mjm

Marie-José Montpetit
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

> On Jul 24, 2018, at 11:05 AM, Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Architecture-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/architecture-discuss

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From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:42:56 -0400

I took a look at the program a few weeks ago and it didn't seem
particularly in-scope for the IETF.  There are, on the other hand, a number
of academic conferences on decentralized technologies in which the work is
closer to the sorts of things we look at, but is unquestionably research.

The IETF doesn't do topical work, per se, but rather works on specific and
narrowly-scoped deliverables.  We haven't seen very much decentralized
technology coming in that would fall into that category, although I do
expect that (in the IRTF) dinrg, if chartered, will publish a consensus
protocol as an experimental standard.

Melinda