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On 2/17/20 12:03 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
Just because IETF has changed doesn't mean it has improved. It's not that people want IETF to work exactly as it did 25 years ago, but there were some things done 25 years ago that make more sense, even under today's conditions, than some of the things that IETF does today. You are correct to point out that conditions have changed, but it's important to recognize _how_ conditions have changed. What I see is that IETF is trying to do far more today (broader
range of topics covered by WGs, WGs more siloed, WGs more likely
to act at cross purposes with one another, more RFCs produced),
with fewer active participants overall than we had 25 years ago.
(Even if some WGs have a great many participants and that makes
work difficult for those WGs.) When IETF conducts its business in a way to discourage diversity and discourage input, I see that as contributing to those problems. The point of looking at past practice is not to say "we should do everything exactly like we did 25 years ago" (because conditions have indeed changed) but rather "we have reason to believe, based on past experience, that it's possible to do better". Keith p.s. one way that IETF could do better is not to attack people for pointing out problems and suggesting ways to improve things.
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