On Mar 8, 2014, at 8:02 PM, mohammed serrhini <serrhini@xxxxxxx> wrote: > I think their exclusion is not fair > the effort must be made by the latter because he has put himself in the skin of the other > and must to ask him self , what happen in the case if native language is the official language IETF is not English One of the frustrations of life is that even if we recognize that something is unfair, there may be limited possibilities for addressing the unfairness. It was once the case that French was the language of diplomacy, and an attempt was made to formulate an artificial language, Esperanto, for use by diplomats as a new "lingua franca." For better or for worse, the Internet broke that process (I don't think there was much hope for Esperanto anyway). So what do we do now? Try to revive Esperanto as a language for expressing standards? Choose a different language, so as to change the lucky recipient of privilege? I can't speak for other IETFers, but I am keenly aware of the unfairness of the current situation. But the only thing I know how to do to fix it is to help people for whom english is not their first language to participate in english anyway. There is a lot of interest within the IETF in doing this—it's not just me. If you have ideas for how to change this, please share them with us. But the mere fact that I as a native english speaker happen to be privileged at the moment is a fact with which I am already painfully familiar (although no doubt much less painfully than the non-native english speakers). If other IETFers are not aware of this, it would be good if they could wake up to it. I would certainly advise native-english-speaking IETFers to really exercise patience when communicating with non-native speakers, keeping in mind exactly what you, Mohammed, have said: that the situation is unfair, and it is incumbent on those of us in the privileged position to do our best to help those who are not. But is that all we can do? And if we do it to the best of our ability, will it be enough? And, I hate to say it, given that not everybody will see it the way you do or the way I do, what else can we do?