[governance] Re: organizational orientation

[Stephane Bortzmeyer]

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 09:25:48PM -0400,
 George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at attglobal.net> wrote 
 a message of 67 lines which said:

> IETF operates as a meritocracy.  It has no legal existence, and
> anyone can register for and attend an IETF meeting.  it doesn't
> matter where you are from, who you work for, what color, gender you
> are, or any other attribute of your personal life and/or beliefs
> that have no bearing on how well you think, contribute or perform.
> Once you are in one of its sessions, you are judged almost
> completely by the ideas that you contribute to the discussion.

The good thing about the IETF is that it values plain and frank
speaking (unlike UN organizations or ICANN which value diplomatic
speech).

That's why, to rebuke your affirmation, you can use IETF documents
themselves. For instance, the RFC 3774 "IETF Problem Statement"
<http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3774.txt> explains very clearly why your
representation is too idealistic.

Other IETF material, such as Thomas Narten's excellent tutorial for
IETF beginners, which are performed at the beginning of every IETF
meeting <http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/06nov/slides/newwork-0.pdf >,
also say quite the opposite of the nice legend you described. For
instance, the opinions of known people count *much* more.

> In therms of treatment of individuals, this is one of the fairest, most 
> egalitarian groups I know. 

Sure, IETF is more open than the GAC, less secretive than the ISO,
technically better than ITU, etc. Big deal. "In the kingdom of blind
men the one-eyed is king."

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