> On May 2, 2020, at 5:56 AM, Leif Johansson <leifj@xxxxxx> wrote: > > > > On 2020-05-02 00:41, Andrew Sullivan wrote: >> Dear colleagues, >> >> I write in my role as the President and CEO of the Internet Society. >> >> Some of you will be aware that the Internet Society announced last >> November a proposed transaction involving Public Interest Registry >> (PIR) and Ethos Capital. This is relevant to the IETF because the >> transaction would have yielded an endowment of over a billion dollars, >> which would have supported ISOC (and hence the IETF) essentially >> forever. Many of you will have heard by now that the Internet >> Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has witheld its >> consent to this transaction. I have written about it at >> https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2020/05/our-work-to-make-the-internet-for-everyone-marches-on/. > > I am not sure why having IETF around "forever" is a good thing. > > Personally I'd rather the IETF that goes away when it has outlived > its usefulness than stick around forever funded by the "endowment" > while keeping a priviledge class of "standards professionals" > around to produce paperwork. I think there will always be a need for standardizing technology used in the internet. Do you think a new organization would spring forth organically that would do a better job than the IETF does? Personally I think the we'd get something less open, with a higher barrier to entry, most likely with a subset of those same privileged "standards professionals" having even more control of the process/content. The IETF was born in a different time and I at least really appreciate some of it's basic principles. I do think there are problems with the IETF that need working on, but I would hope we could work on those rather than just give up. "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" and "The grass is always greener on the other side". Come to mind. Thanks, Chris. > > I'm not saying were there today but lets not bemoan the lack of > funding that might greese those particular skids. You know what > they say about the mother of all invention... > > Cheers Leif
