Subject: Observations on (non-technical) changes affecting IETF operations

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2016 00:03:33 +0200

A while back I had asked for volunteers to join a design
team to look at (non-technical) trends and changes that
relate to IETF operations.

The team has been working and they have today published
an -00 draft. We’d love to have your feedback and thoughts
on this topic!

The document details are below:

Title: IETF Trends and Observations

Team: Jari Arkko, Alia Atlas, Avri Doria, Tobias Gondrom,
Olaf Kolkman, Steve Olshansky, Benson Schliesser,
Robert Sparks, Russ White

URL:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-arkko-ietf-trends-and-observations-00

Abstract:

While most of the work in the IETF is technical, the IETF should and
does regularly examine itself, including its processes and goals, to
determine if the technical community is truly serving the larger
network engineering community effectively.  Changes in this area tend
to be incremental, as is fitting for an organization with decades of
experience and history in developing and managing the process of
building technical specifications.

The rapid and ongoing changes in the world have recently caused a
number of IETF participants to examine the current processes and
operation of the IETF, particularly in the context of the culture of
the IETF.  This memo discusses some cultural and global trends in
relation to the IETF's operating environment, how these trends might
affect the operation of the IETF, and notes some topics for further
exploration.

Writing this memo has been inspired by involvement in various
decisions that the IETF leadership has to take part in, often wishing
to be able to draw more on understanding trends and their impact on
the IETF.

This memo is also input for discussion that the IETF community should
have.

The memo has no particular official standing, nor does it claim to
represent more than the authors' thinking at the time of writing.
There is no intent on the part of the authors for this to be
published as a RFC.  Please direct discussion about this topic to the
[email-masked] mailing list.