Re: Possible RFC 3683 PR-action

Theodore Tso <tytso@MIT.EDU> writes:

> Which once again brings us back to the question of what is the value
> of letting contributors operate under a cloak of anonymity, and do the
> benefits outweigh the costs.  For political speech where someone wants
> to distribute the equivalent of leaflets decrying their current's
> government position on say, torture in violation of the Geneva
> convention, it's much easier to make the case that allowing anonymous
> speech is hugely important.  In a standards organization, it's much
> harder to make the argument that anonymity is really a benefit.
>
> For example, in the current MS-OOXML controversy, anonymity would make
> it impossible, or at least much more difficult, to determine whether
> or not Microsoft really did pack various countries' national bodies
> with their business partners, and reimbursed membership fees via
> "marketing considerations".  So I'm rather glad that all or most ISO
> national body rules do require declaration and disclosure of legal
> names and corporate affiliations.....

I think that is interesting analogy.  I'm not at all as convinced you
are that ISO's model is better than the IETF's model here.  First, if
ISO had been acting only on the technical merits in this matter, the
proposal would be dead a long time ago.  The reason the proposal is
still around in ISO seems to be because ISO is membership-driven, and
needs to decide based on what the members vote.  I think this model
leads to quite different participators than a more open and technical
focused process.

The more I think about it, I like the IETF's pasts model better than ISO
current.  Fortunately, if the IETF becomes more like ISO, then I am
confident that there will be another organization that is similar to the
original IETF spirit.  When there is damage, route around it...

/Simon
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