RE: Public musing on the nature of IETF membership and employment status

[Hadriel Kaplan <HKaplan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 

Since you guys are affecting my top-of-the-list status for the weekly posting summary, I’m gonna have to jump in… J

 

We can all claim our environment doesn’t change our views, but that’s hard to reconcile with human behavior research.

 

Regardless, I think even you’d agree that one’s views on technical issues can easily change if, for example, one were to switch from working for a customer/user to a manufacturer.

 

For example, my company has hired numerous folks for their technical competence or experiences from other sectors of the VoIP industry, who changed some of their views on certain technical issues in SIP or RTP once they learned the issues we have to face on a daily basis.  Issues related to interoperability, or hardware vs. software, or scalability and performance – issues that they either didn’t take into consideration or had different assumptions for, when they were “users” running the gear or were working in a different SIP “world”.  And working on IETF mechanisms is not only about purely technical arguments – it’s about pragmatism as well, and what one finds pragmatic can easily change based on the environment.

 

That’s also why I would like the IETF Nomcom to continue considering employers when selecting Area Directors and such – because their employer affects the environment they view technology from.

 

-hadriel

 

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From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark Atwood
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 1:40 AM
To: ietf@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Public musing on the nature of IETF membership and employment status

 

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 10:22 PM, Dean Willis <dean.willis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 8, 2010, at 7:01 PM, Stephan Wenger wrote:

Hi Fred,

 

Would you really expect me not to throw my weight (assuming there were one) behind the proposal I fought teeth and claws before—and damage my relationship with my new employer during the first days on the job?

 

Yep. If you did, most of the people I know around the IETF would never trust you again. Instead, we'd expect you to convert your new employer to your old way of thinking.

 

I'm afraid I have to agree with Dean here, which is kind of weird.

 

When I take a job, my employer knows ahead of time what my technical opinions are.  That is *what* they hire me for!

 

I am no employers' whore, no employers' sycophant, and no employers' sancho.  And I have the (apparently vain) belief that most other people are such as well.

 

And if moving over to an new employer gives you "inside" technical knowledge that their standards proposal is somehow superior in ways that you were not aware of before, despite being part of the standards process in that technological space, that means that that company is trying to pull a fast one, and is playing fast and loose with the "must reveal" rules, and thus is being more than a little slimy.

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