IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)

Wed May 23 00:46:43 EDT 2012

It seems to me Ian provided at least two metrics (solution of basic
architectural issues such as security and identity, and adoption of IPv6)
which one may use to judge the success of IETF. They seem to me to be
fairly objective and operational.

Best,

Andrea
On May 23, 2012 12:06 AM, "Avri Doria" <avri at acm.org> wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> You are right, I have not done a professional comparative analysis.  Nor
> do I know of one.
>
> But from a 30 year career of participating in all sort of organizations
> with all sorts of models, I find it to be the the most effective and the
> least prone to corruption of any I have had the pleasure to serve in. Also
> from a professional point of view based on an advanced degree that included
>  counseling in organizational settings based on group dynamics , I find it
> to have the healthiest group dynamics of any organization I have been part
> of.
>
> If you have spent years serving in the IETF as well as other organizations
> and judge it inferior, I would be glad to hear why.  But unsubstantiated
> comments and the lack of a study we can all agree is unbiased, is hardly
> evidence.
>
> avri
>
> On 22 May 2012, at 17:03, Ian Peter wrote:
>
> > I continually find the argument that "IETF works well" to be based on
> very
> > little real analysis.
> >
> > I consider the IETF model to be one which which may have been suitable in
> > the early internet days but which has probably outlived its usefulness. I
> > think Tim Berners Lee knew that as long ago as the early 1990s when he
> moved
> > WWW standards setting elsewhere.
> >
> > If the criteria for judging IETF is solving the Internet's main technical
> > problems, it's hard to rank them highly. Basic matters such as security
> and
> > identity and seem to still need a lot of work.
> >
> > If the basic criteria is creating lots of standards, they do quite well.
> > There are thousands of them, often overlapping and sometimes unable to
> > operate with each other. But if the criteria is adoption of standards,
> they
> > don't do very well - from the 20-year-to-date slow adoption of IPv6 to
> many
> > other standards that just wallow in the RFC archives.
> >
> > I think we should stop pretending that IETF creates some sort of model to
> > follow, and analyse its performance and figure whether some other
> structure,
> > merger, replacement, or set of improvements might be more suitable for
> this
> > day and age.
> >
> > IETF was recently described on this list as a meritocracy. Is that a
> > reasonable assessment, and if so, is that the sort of model for internet
> > governance we wish to propagate?
> >
> > Again, I would like to see some decent analysis rather than the belief
> that
> > since it has been with us since the good old days it must be good.
> >
> > Ian Peter
> >
> > PS one of the things that seems fairly standard in business management is
> > that the sort of structures that work well for organisations in their
> early
> > stages don't necessarily scale to mature and much more complex
> > organisational needs, and radical change of structure is fairly normal
> > evolution. We seem to resist that in internet matters.
> >
> >
> >> From: Avri <avri at acm.org>
> >> Reply-To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, Avri <avri at acm.org>
> >> Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 11:01:59 -0400
> >> To: IGC <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
> >> Subject: Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on
> >> economics)
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I also do not have an analysis, but from 20+ years participation would
> say the
> >> primary reason that capture does not happen is because people would not
> stand
> >> for it.  Over time there have been a few occasions when one large
> company or
> >> other tried to ram its favorite solutions through the process.  But by
> the
> >> time the various WG and review process had been gone through it it was
> no
> >> longer the solution that the large company tried to ram through.   And
> that is
> >> because people review seriously, do a bit of implementation testing,
> and argue
> >> their issues freely.
> >>
> >> Another possible reason it works is genuineness in regards to ones
> opinion.  I
> >> have often seen the people from the same company arguing with each
> other in
> >> the midst of a public WG meeting over the better path.  Just try to
> imagine
> >> two people from a single country or a single organization getting up in
> a
> >> meeting and disagreeing with each other? And yet, that would be a
> healthy sign
> >> in my view of having achieved a bit of maturity in the multistakeholder
> model
> >>
> >> Often people say that the IETF formula only works because it is dealing
> with
> >> technical subjects but that it would not work in the policy area.  I
> think
> >> this argument is unproven and I don't beleive it.  I think people
> assume there
> >> is just one correct technological solution, but this is never the case.
>  There
> >> are many tradeoffs that must be made a long the way to a possible
> technical
> >> solution and the outcome is by no means fated to a single possible
> solution.
> >> I think the technical solution space and the policy solution space are
> not
> >> inherently dissimilar in character and thus do not accept that it is
> subject
> >> matter that make the IETF formula not work for policy issues.
> >>
> >> The main difference I find between the policy arena and the technical
> area is
> >> the consistency of people's opinions.  In technology, for the most part,
> >> people beleive in the same technical solutions even after they change
> jobs.
> >> In the policy area, people's views often change when they change jobs.
>  In
> >> tech people argue what they personally beleive while in policy people
> seem to
> >> often argue what they are paid to beleive in.  In the tech area, one
> rarely
> >> gets a job because they picked one technical solution over another,
> while in
> >> policy who you agree with determines who you work for and for many
> people this
> >> means conforming their views to their potential employers.
> >>
> >> avri
> >>
> >>
> >> On 22 May 2012, at 07:26, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> >>
> >>> Andrea Glorioso <andrea at digitalpolicy.it> wrote:
> >>>> On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> >>>>> So I would suggest that the way forward will have to involve
> proposals
> >>>>> of concrete substantive topic areas to be addressed by the "Enhanced
> >>>>> Cooperation" process and its institutions, together with a strong
> >>>>> commitment to seek, through true multistakeholder discussions, a good
> >>>>> way to model this "Enhanced Cooperation" process on how things work
> in
> >>>>> the IETF.
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> I may have misunderstood and/or missed something, but it seems to me
> you
> >>>> are suggesting that there is something in the procedures of the IETF
> that
> >>>> shields it from "undue influence" by "powerful stakeholders" etc. I
> am not
> >>>> questioning this assumption (at least not right now) but I wonder
> whether
> >>>> - assuming I have correctly understood - there are some analytical
> bases
> >>>> to this assumption. Not the least because one may distill such
> processes /
> >>>> characteristics and try to replicate them elsewhere (although I must
> say I
> >>>> am by default unconvinced of the possibility to replicate the
> processes of
> >>>> the IETF outside of the very narrow remit of the "organisation").
> >>>
> >>> Hello Andrea and all
> >>>
> >>> Alas I currently do not have any formal analysis. So far the only
> >>> basis for my assertion is my own observations, as well as confirming
> >>> anecdotical evidence that I have heard from others. However I am
> >>> optimistic about the possibility of replicating this "robustness
> >>> against undue influence attempts from powerful stakeholders"
> >>> property in the context of other topic areas. In particular, I would
> >>> suggest that the principles of openness of participation and rough
> >>> consensus may be applicable quite broadly, while for the criterion
> >>> of "running code", it will probably be necessary to figure out, for
> >>> each topic area, a suitable criterion which has similar socioeconomic
> >>> effects. I would suggest to look, for each topic area, for an informal
> >>> criterion that provides guidance about when sufficient information is
> >>> available among the participants of the discussion so that they can,
> >>> as a group, make a reasonably well-informed rough consensus decision.
> >>> Anyway, the principles that IETF is based on (absolute openness of
> >>> participation, rough consensus and running code) are well-known and
> >>> reasonably well-understood, at least by the people who have
> >>> participated there.
> >>>
> >>> I would expect the big challenge to be in the area of convincing
> >>> governments to give this kind of approach, with a suitable replacement
> >>> for "running code" according to whatever is the particular topic area,
> >>> a serious chance.
> >>>
> >>> What kind of analysis document would be helpful for that?
> >>>
> >>> Greetings,
> >>> Norbert
> >>>
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