On Wed, 10 Jun 2015, Michael StJohns wrote:
1) Is my description of the IETF process reasonably close to reality? E.g. does the consensus process contribute to "Standardization by Combat"?
I don't know how much it contributes, but there is also widely differing ways of "doing business" in the IETF depending on what WG we're talking about, and what people populate it.
There are working groups where the mailing lists are basically silent apart from draft announcement postings and administrativa, everything else is done behind the scenes in private. Then there are groups where a lot of the discussions are done in public and basically "brainstorming" is done on the mailing list.
So it all depends on what your personal style is, if either of these fits you or not. I know people who refuse to participate in "let's brainstorm in front of the whiteboard" style of working, and prefer to go home and sit for a day and write document/presentation, to present their views.
We're always going to see friction between different personalities, cultures etc, and how they prefer to work and express themselves. We need to cater to all, so we need to find ways of working that doesn't exclude anyone. I tend to think that we do this, but we're never going to avoid having friction when all these people are interacting and have differing views, ways to express these views, and who often believe strongly in these views.
So I tend to think of the IETF consensus process the same way as democracy, it's bad, but all the other alternatives are worse, so let's try to work with what we've got and try to make the most of it.
-- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@xxxxxxxxx