On Jul 10, 2013, at 12:07 AM, Ted Lemon <Ted.Lemon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Jul 9, 2013, at 4:58 PM, Scott Brim <scott.brim@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Is the great majority of the wisdom in the IETF incorporated into a >> few megacorporations? >> >> (That might reflect market share, in which case, is it a problem?) > > I don't know the answer to that question, but it's an interesting question. But the reason I reacted to John Klensin's message earlier the way I did is that I think that the question of how biased toward the company's goals a nomcom participant will be has a lot to do with the individual candidate. I think that before we discuss the extent of the bias, we should explore the question of whether such bias matters. Phrased as a question, how much can a nomcom member (or a pair of them) do to advance a company's goals? I've heard that nomcom members recuse themselves from discussions of candidates from their own company, so company X can't hope to get its employees appointed as ADs by stuffing the nomcom with other employees. Well, unless there's a huge back-room conspiracy among several such companies. Company X might have a bunch of technologies that they want to bring to the IETF to get them rubber-stamped as standards track RFCs, and they might want to see to it that ADs that will be trouble-makers don't get elected. That might even work (a single member is much more able to prevent someone being appointed than to cause someone to be appointed) But such proposals could be defeated in working groups and at IETF last call long before they even reach the IESG. I just don't see the benefit justifying the effort. Yoav