At 19:43 30/11/2005, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
In effect the message is sent out 'you do not really belong here', 'you are a second class citizen', 'the IETF is an American organization and the only people who really matter are going to be American'.
The situation is rather simple. The leading economic, military, technical, power is American. The USA is also the place in the world the less knowledgeable about others (4% of the students take foreign languages, 84% of the citizens have no passport). This makes necessary for others to adapt to this big "black hole".
But this effort is not the RFC 3935 religion: "The mission of the IETF is to produce high quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that _influence_ the way people design, use, and manage the Internet"."The IETF community wants the Internet to _succeed_ because we _believe_ that the existence of the Internet, and its _influence_ on economics, communication, and education, will help us to build a _better_human_society_." With a unilateral definition of the Internet, very similar to the 47 USC 230 (f)(1) legal US definition, and no more as the free adherence to the IETF documents.
The fact that Brian is English and lives in Zurich is irrelevant. People take their names very seriously and personally. It's a question of outreach. Having one meeting out of three held outside North America each year is not outreach, it is a holiday.
The reverse is more and more true. After 9/11 less and less foreign students and searchers come to the USA. Tunis is actually a deal. After the deregulation, the USA were left without a nationwide datacoms system. The Internet provided it 15 years late: the cons and pros lead the rest of the world to adapt. But the cons and pros have drastically changed. Tunis deal is that the "other countries give the USA five years - more probably 10 years - to upgrade to the level they want to be 10 years from now".
The world today think it can work with a non-US based world system and even accept a lower grade US system as no more a core system. The decentralised world network, after a forced US centralisation, resumes expansion toward a fully distributed network. KPNQuest bankruptcy and New-York black-out consequences have taught their lessons. The problem today is the transition without strangulation.
I am currently at the W3C AC meeting. They are also involved in the ongoing 'internet governance' discussions but the W3C is involved a participant in the discussions while the IETF is one of the topics of the discussions. Needless to say it is better to be a participant than the topic. The W3C has avoided concern by being conspicuously international in its approach. The IETF has had the attitude 'this is the way we do things here, nobody asked you to like it'.
The real US problem is that the IETF architecture does not innovate and deliver what is expected (look at the new propositions on the "IAB Discuss" mailing list. This made the USG late on their http://whitehouse.gov/pcipb plan. And to call on alternative plans (NSF). We waited, we cannot wait anymore.
It is simply a fact of modern life that the ability to speak English well is an essential qualification for almost all forms of knowledge work, particularly at the research and elite levels.
The English has cons and pros. At this time it is a good protection against balkanisation. If some of the ASCII documents limitations are waived (what I said about references and authoritative referents). It permits to keep some good cooperation among the US/EU/Japan R&D. It may help also to keep close with India - the largest English speaking nation. But you are right: probably more network engineers will be educated in Chinese than in any other (English included) languages.
Its cons is the "unique technical thinking/vision" it tends to lead to. After permitting a compact team [until the mid-80] to bootstrap, it is a steriliser. Someone noted that German could not word English Internet concepts. This is interesting because this necessarily mean that German Internet concepts might have been different. I know many key French concept that cannot translate in English. The Internet might have been richer, simpler, more performing, more stable and secure - the usual benefits from established multilateral alliances and lucid mutual respects.
That does not mean that a group of mostly English speakers should also make good English an essential qualification at the apprentice and journeyman stages of learning the craft.
On Dec. 14th, that group (approving the RFC 3066 bis) has elected itself as the world center of competence and reference to identify the languages of every nation. I am sure it is ready to support that big new challenging and exciting mission in welcoming people like me, of every language to share into its resulting duties.
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