what are the real problems

[Edward Lewis]

At 11:08 -0700 5/21/03, Randy Bush wrote:
><personal opinion>
>    the ietf's goal is to produce high quality, relevant, and timely
>    standards for internet technology.

With limited time, I've off and on tracked this mail list.  From this 
thread I can see two different states in which the IETF can wind up, 
both meeting the above goal, yet the problems in achieving one state 
are different from one achieving the other state.  (These two states 
do not necessarily constitute an exhaustive list.)

One state is being a strongly authoritative SDO, being a leader to 
the vendor and operator community through quality and timely 
documents describing protocols and practices.  Getting there from 
here means solving the perceived-by-some latency, hidden criterion, 
and opaque decision making process. (Note "perceived-by-some.")

The other state is a being an engineering collective that fosters 
goodness in individual contributions via a strong mentoring program, 
letting the market decide from there on.  The problem to solve before 
reaching this state is the reversal of the IETF's long standing 
tendency to downgrade education as part of its mission.  (This state 
is much lighter weight than the first, which is why it might be a 
viable alternative.)

Both states can achieve the goal as stated above, but the different 
approaches to doing so require different problems to be solved. 
Perhaps the state in which we wind up will depend on which problems 
are easier to solve.
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Edward Lewis                                            +1-703-227-9854
ARIN Research Engineer

Your office is *not* a reality-based sit-com TV show.