Jari Arkko wrote: > > But I think we are missing a bit of the point in this discussion. > I do not feel that we need to prove we are somehow "no worse" than > industry average. The point is that *if* we had more diversity along > many of the discussed lines, we'd be far better off. For instance, > having people from multiple organisations provide input to a last > would be preferable to just a few. Similarly with the other dimensions > of diversity. When I talked to some of the ISOC fellows last week, > I realised peering is very different on different continents. I'm far from convinced that the IETF would be "better off" with strong diversity (company-wise and cultural-wise). This probably begs for clarification how we define "better off" in the first place. The more diverse the "culture", the higher the probability for miscommunication (misunderstanding and taking offense). The more more diverse the (interests) of the affiliations of IETF participants and IETF leadership, the hotter the dicussions typically burn on contentious issues (ratholing). That is at least my very personal perception (over the past 18 years, but admittedly from just a few WGs in the security area, that are probably not representative of the IETF in general). This does *NOT* mean that that I am opposed to diversity in any way. But I do not believe that more diversity will unconditionally improve the situation. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W7qnSgy4xWo/TI_htYJ9pqI/AAAAAAAAADM/AdNqCzCBz14/s640/Too+many+cooks+spoil+the+broth.jpg While I agree that it helps avoiding a "few big vendors" bias. is this really a significant problem _today_, adversely affecting a non-marginal amount of the current IETF output, and in a fashion where simply more diversity in the I* leadership would bring a noticable improvement--without that same change adversely affecting the amount and quality of the *other* IETF output? -Martin
