Subject: Re: Internet standardisation remains unilateral

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 09:34:43 -0400 (EDT)

> From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>

    > I think his slides do miss some essential points

For me, the biggest one is regarding non-US people (whether you measure 'US'
by citizenship, or residence) working for US-'based' multi-nationals. (That
too is a complex question, as their country of incorporation may not be where
their main nexus us, although for many tech companies it is.)  He counted such
people as 'US', but I think that's a simple gloss on a more complex reality.

And of course it goes both ways - what about, e.g. US citizens working for a
non-US company? What box do they go in? If you go by the company's country,
for US companies (even if the personnel are non-US citizens, residing in their
native country), would the same rule apply to non-US companies?

Actually, probably a bigger issue than national bias is the dominance of
vendors (who can afford to send personnel), versus users.

	Noel

---

From: Hannes Tschofenig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 15:55:13 +0200

> vendors (who can afford to send personnel), versus users.

I wonder whether Internet standardization is so different from other 
sectors.

In any case, someone needs to find the motivation to spend his/her time 
to work on specifications. Obviously, not everyone is willing to do that 
even though the barrier of entry in the IETF is fairly low.

Vendors obviously have a fairly good motivation to participate.

For example, the author of the slide deck could participate in the IETF 
rather than suggesting that the specifications should be submitted to a 
national standards body for comments. One could even argue that the 
national body (which is most likely heavily influenced by vendors) could 
send their comments directly to the IETF (if they care about a certain 
technology).

How separate efforts in national standards bodies avoids the problem of 
local deviations (as mentioned in the slides) is a mystery to me.

With regard to the strong US focus in the IETF I believe we have 
discussed this topic extensively under the umbrella of increasing diversity.

Ciao
Hannes