Re: Internet standardisation remains unilateral

[SM <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,
At 08:58 21-10-2013, John Day wrote:
> From my experience over the years, I would generalize this that the 
> developed world has dominated the standards process in this field, 
> whether it was the IETF, ISO, ITU, or IEEE and most others.  Most 
> of that has to do with the expense involved in 
> participating.  Since the 1990s, the ability to

Yes.

>participate on-line has done a lot to lower that barrier and we see 
>that.  At one point IEEE was considered a US professional organization and all

Let's assume that ietf@ is a data point for "participate on-line".  A 
scan of the mailing list archive for this month would show that the 
following IESG and IAB members have participated:

   Jari Arkko
   Benoit Claise
   Ted Lemon
   Barry Leiba
   Adrian Farrel
   Stephen Farrell
   Joel Jaeggli
   Pete Resnick
   Gonzalo Camarillo
   Stewart Bryant
   Spencer Dawkins
   Hannes Tschofenig
   Andrew Sullivan
   Eliot Lear
   Russ Housley
   Joel Halpern

All members have not participated (see above).

I would look at it this way; if I tell Person X that he/she has the 
ability to participate on-line and the person tells me: "I don't see 
everyone participating on-line", what would my response be?  If I 
give a less-than-honest response it won't be convincing.

>It still takes time for countries to "come up to speed" and do we 
>really have any idea how many are watching but contributing 
>infrequently. As Jorge points out we are seeing this change, 
>although perhaps not as fast as we (or they) would like.

I don't think that there are any numbers for "contributing 
infrequently".  It is premature to say whether there is a visible 
change (in terms of countries) or not.

>Yes, English is a problem for all non-English speakers.   It takes a 
>lot of effort to work in a foreign language even when you are 
>fluent, and English isn't the easiest of languages.  ;-) I have

Yes.

The is also the problem of culture.  Person X and I may speak the 
same language (it might not be English) but it can still be difficult 
for us to have a conversation.  Person X might not be comfortable to 
tell me what he/she thinks or that he/she has not understood what I 
said.  It might be some variation of cultural leveling.

>As with most things like this, if the problem isn't stressed 
>progress against the issue will be even slower.  There are 
>structural issues in the IETF that allow over representation in 
>meetings, what some might call stacking meetings, but this seems to 
>be a case more of companies stacking meeting rather than countries.

Yes.

There is a clash of values at some level ...

Regards,
-sm