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

[Lee W McKnight]

________________________________






I will have more to say...another day since it's late for me.

But re IETF, this is very important for folks to understand...as Avria said:

If accountability means taking responsibility for what has been done, I think that the IETF practice of taking three steps before deeming something a standard is part of their accountability story.  First they code and prove that something works before making it a proposed standard, then they test in the real world on the real Internet and fix it and call it a draft standard, and only when it becomes fully functional and mainstream in the world does it become a full standard.  There are only 66 or so full standards.  They stand by their work, publish fixes, take responsibility for problems that occur in the network with their standards, improve, republish and monitor.  They take responsibly in a very public way, certainly  large part of accountability.  If their stuff was not worth using, now one would use it and we would have a world full of 7 layer OSI protocol based equipment.

The IETF has kept the fragile net of nets up for decades.   Not a perfect org, but consider the alternative.

A model such as IETF's  and the IGC in which individual volunteers voluntarily assume responsibility has its share of problems...but for net specs, it's worked well. Not perfect but ok for IGC too. Extending that further versus alternate models into Internet governance/enhance cooperation...I will comment more on in next post, tomorrow.









From: sama.digitalpolicy at gmail.com [sama.digitalpolicy at gmail.com] on behalf of Andrea Glorioso [andrea at digitalpolicy.it]
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:54 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)



On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 3:28 PM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com<mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com>> wrote:
On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:46 AM, Andrea Glorioso
<andrea at digitalpolicy.it<mailto:andrea at digitalpolicy.it>> wrote:
> It seems to me Ian provided at least two metrics (solution of basic
> architectural issues such as security and identity,

Are you sure these are architecture issues?

I am sure of very few things, but security and identity do seem to me to be strictly linked to the architecture of an inter-networking system. I imagine some people may argue that these are matters for end-points, which (for some) are not part of the architecture. But I'd love to hear your views on the matter.

> and adoption of IPv6)

Why would adoption be a metric of success of a standards body?  I
would think the metric would be the standard itself!

What's the use of a standards-making body if nobody uses those standards?

And, to make the parallel between the IETF and public policy making bodies that some people have proposed (not sure you are actually proposing it) would a public authority be judged on the beauty, elegance, etc of the legislation it produces or on the fact that such legislation is actually used/respected and it achieves the objectives it is supposed to achieve?

Best,

Andrea

--
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