todd, and fellow ietf participants-- I don't want to eat too much bandwidth on the IETF Discussion list, so this followup will be my last contribution on the subject. I considered not posting anything at all, but I feel motivated to clarify my views. On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 09:02 PM, todd glassey wrote: > > [...] The IETF is still predominantly Engineering Staffers and the > Internet > has evolved to a point where it now needs Commercial input too. [...] I see no problem whatsoever in the fact that an organization called the Internet Engineering Task Force is primarily composed of individual engineers. At the risk of sounding either like a reactionary or a counter-revolutionary (you pick), I'll step forward to say that an engineer with no commercial interests is like a politician with no constituency. In other words: a monster raving looney. It's true we might have a few bourgeois dilettantes who participate in IETF work without pursuing any commercial interests in doing so, but so what? If they can help out, we can use them. The rest of us all have employment contracts to fulfill or businesses to run, and we have a keen understanding that our commercial purposes drive the work we do. You got a problem with that? > [...] The problem as I see it is that the Engineer (or child) in us is > frightened by this, since traditionally the commercial folks (the > adults) have driven home that [...] This sentence made it very difficult for me to continue reading. It doesn't seem like you know what the word 'engineering' means. There are many fine dictionaries available on the web... hint hint. > [...] The current problem the world faces is that an Internet Standard > is > potentially worth billions of dollars. (see local exchange rates for > details > on the value in your own currency) and this now is a serious issue. It > taints > everything that the IETF does and participates in. [...] The logic you employed to reach this conclusion completely evades me. -- j h woodyatt <jhw@wetware.com>