My thoughts about the problems of the IETF

[James Kempf]

Charlie,

> - If, as I thought, this was the _first_ such decision,
>   does it really mean that all previous appeals were really
>   without merit?
> - Has anything changed to make the IAB more responsive to
>   viewpoints not represented within the IESG?
>

I have not researched any previous decisions in detail, and I was not
involved in deliberation on them, but I believe the KRE appeal was
decided on the merits of the case. I assume the same was done by
previous IABs for previous appeals, thus, I don't think there really has
been a major change in the IAB's responsiveness to other viewpoints. I
will note that the text of the other two IAB appeals listed on the IAB
web site, from 1999 and 2001, both deal with process related issues.

There are some appeals made to the IESG in which the IESG actually
decides that the appeal was correct, see
http://www.iesg.org/IESG/APPEALS/zorn-appeal-response.txt for a recent
example.  I assume most technical appeals in the past have been of this
nature, that is, the appealer asks the IESG to consider whether they've
made a technical misjudgement in a certain case, and either the IESG
says "you're right, we screwed up" or the appealer decides, based on the
IESG response, that the IESG's technical viewpoint was not in error and
drops the appeal.

            jak