Re: [Gendispatch] IETF transparency and diversity

[Tony Rutkowski <[e-mail]>]

Hi Keith,

Of course.  The point is that the IETF during the transition from its 
DARPA/NSF instantiation to a more public one, failed to give attention 
to the pernicious effects of a lack of definitive participant 
attribution which was well known in other standards bodies, and adopted 
a children's myth of doing good for the internet mantra.  It is like the 
Sydney Powell defense - no rational person would believe the myth.

The lack of attribution transparency creates both significant antitrust 
exposure, as well as incentives for extremists to control the 
organisation.  That was papered over with lots of liability insurance, 
substantially increased patent filings, and an equally opaque, a 
byzantine faux approval mechanism that obfuscate responsibility and 
dampen diversity.  The ultimate determinant - what gets adopted in the 
networking marketplace - also controls the behaviour.

In a kind of Back to the Future scenario, the IETF will probably have a 
place for attracting academic activists and mining their ideas and 
participant intelligence during the 70s and 80s.  If it wants to do more 
in the future, however, it needs to clean up its institutional act and 
implement effective transparency mechanisms.

--tony (apostate analyst and not afraid of going to internet hell)

On 07-Apr-21 1:35 PM, Keith Moore wrote:
> On 4/7/21 1:30 PM, Tony Rutkowski wrote:
>
>>
>> The email based attribution helps, and many standards bodies enforce 
>> their use for attribution.
>
> That's their choice.  It doesn't apply to IETF.
>
> Keith
>
>