RE: actions related to improving IETF meeting selections

[Sheng Jiang <[e-mail]>]

>On 6/12/16 5:42 PM, Sheng Jiang wrote:
>> I
>> personally believe it is feasible because the current three meetings per
>> year is actually slowing down many WGs’ pace.
>
>If so, it's because people are choosing not to progress
>work between meetings, where "people" include both chairs
>and editors.

Yes, but it is given that we do not provide the opportunities. The chairs have to do every logistics by themselves with the risk that only key contributors would like to travel for this single WG interim meeting. Actually, even myself, although I think one more meeting would benefit my WG, I don't want to organize it by myself. But it was IETF organizing a secondary meeting, I certainly would like to give a try.

I have been involved in a few standardization bodies, ITU-T, ETSI, BBF, 3GPP.... I don't think IETF should bring the style from them. But I do feel the IETF three meeting per year is a little bit rigid. And I did hear a lot of complain from various people regarding to the slow progress of IETF standardization.

Sheng

>By contrast, W3C is able to progress work
>rather quickly (er, for the most part) and meets only
>once/year.  However, they make heavy use of teleconferences,
>collaboration tools, and mailing lists.
>
> > If you asked the WG chairs the question of how many f2f
>> meetings per year are ideal for their WGs, in my guess, over 1/4 WGs
>> would like to meet more than three times.
>
>I've chaired a bunch of working groups over the years and never
>felt that way, myself.  In a working group I chair currently
>our editors rarely show up at face to face meetings and while
>we're a lot slower than we'd like to be I'd say that has more
>to do with problems that would not be resolved by meeting more
>frequently or by having editors at meetings.
>
>It is a little vexing that in many cases we're being asked
>to accommodate the needs of people who haven't actively
>contributed in the past and who don't show an interest in
>actively contributing in the future.
>
>I chaired an ETSI working group (TIPHON Security) a bunch
>of years ago and don't think that their working style (nor that
>of the ITU-T, or IEEE, or ... ) maps particularly well onto the
>IETF, and consequently that it would be inappropriate to force
>it.  Also note that ETSI and 3GPP (and W3C) and so on have
>designated experts on salary to move work along, and it may
>be worth considering the extent to which they're able to move
>work forward by paying someone else to do it.
>
>The question of the relevance of IETF standards is inseparable from
>the question of their implementation and deployment, I think, and
>the economic model underlying our work is quite different from that
>motivating the work of the big, traditional telecomm standards
>bodies.
>
>Melinda