View source for IETF

=Discussion=

==Lee Fleming on IETF Governance==

Fleming:

“Although strictly speaking the IETF is an open standards
rather than an open source community, it nevertheless
exhibits critical open innovation community features
in that any individual can volunteer to participate, proceedings
remain transparent, and all technology originated
therein is made available for free (Bradner 1999).
The IETF is also the most long lived of the well-known
open innovation communities and arguably exerts the
greatest social and economic impact because of its association
with the Internet. Of its potential as a model
for open innovation communities Bradner (1999, pp. 47
and 52) reports that:

- ''IETF standards are developed in an open, all-inclusive process in which any interested individual can participate. All IETF documents are freely available over the Internet and can be reproduced at will. In fact the IETF’s open document process is a case study in the potential of the Open Source movement _ _ _ _ The IETF supported the concept of open sources long before the Open Source movement was formed''.


The IETF emerged in 1986 from an amalgam of ad hoc
Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration
(DARPA) committees and has no official mandate to
govern Internet technology. Challenged by more traditional
standards-developing organizations and even
government bodies, it has nonetheless emerged as the
de facto standards-developing organization for the Internet
(Abbate 1999, Mowery and Simcoe 2002; see also
Harris 2001; Bradner 1996, 1998; and Hoffman and
Bradner 2002 for insiders’ descriptions). The IETF
develops and maintains the core Internet standard,
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol),
as well as many other standards that are pervasive
in modern computing and networking but largely invisible
to the average user. Although much of the communication
and work of the IETF is conducted via electronic
media, members meet three times a year, carrying forward
a tradition begun in January 1986 when 21 IETFers
met for the first time in San Diego. Membership
remains open to all comers and has continued to grow,
with as many as 2,800 individuals attending meetings
and thousands more interacting online. Members participate
in the IETF at least nominally as individuals
(Bradner 1999), although they typically work for firms,
universities, or governments. There being no dues or
membership lists, in principle any person can join the
IETF.

The IETF accomplishes most of its work within aptly
named working groups (WGs) organized under larger
functional areas. Individuals can freely associate, virtually
or physically, with any of the extant technical
working groups. Groups and their leaders seek and, if
successful, are granted charters to address specific technical
problems within a delimited time and domain.
The Secure Shell Group, for example, was chartered
to update and standardize the popular SSH protocol
(Secure Shell secsh 2003). Working groups have chairs
as well as individuals or design teams charged to produce
documents that detail proposed standards. Area
directors (ADs) appoint working group chairs. A nominating
committee (NOMCON), randomly selected from
community members who have attended at least two
IETF meetings in the past two years, appoints ADs (generally
two for each area).

The first stage in group formation entails
soliciting BOF participation via electronic invitations
disseminated to the IETF mailing list. Organizers who
generate favorable sign-up response receive physical
meeting space at the next IETF conference. If a meeting
is well attended and elicits broad interest, an AD
will charter a group and appoint a chair. The chair is
generally, but not always, the BOF organizer. Appointment
can thus be construed as confirmation of initially
successful leadership and a vote of confidence by community
members and current leaders in the individual’s
leadership potential."

(http://orgsci.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/2/165)


==Source==

* '''Article: Brokerage, Boundary Spanning, and Leadership in Open Innovation Communities. By Lee Fleming (Harvard Business School), David M. Waguespack (University of Maryland)'''

URL = http://orgsci.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/2/165


=More information=

'''* Article: Exploring the Remarkable Regenerative Patterns and Practices of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). By Kaliya “Identity Woman” Young & Day Davis Waterbury. Summer of Protocol, 2024.'''

URL = https://identitywoman.net/ietf-research/

"The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is not well-known outside of technical communities.
Its impact on the everyday lives of billions of people is profound yet paradoxically almost
invisible. Attention and resources rightfully flow towards unsolved problems and contentious
issues and away from whatever is functioning smoothly. We owe a debt of gratitude not only to
the initial inventors of the protocols that make the Internet possible but also to their profound
commitment to preserving the freedom and openness of the incredible resources they help
create.

This work reports on research focused on the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF)
innovative processes for creating protocols for all – descriptions of how to move data in
networks of computers – as well as protocols for its own governance. The IETF uses a
sophisticated tool, the DataTracker, which serves as a ‘group brain’ that stores all the
information at all levels of the organization. The IETF also has a culture that nurtures deep
listening and deliberative discernment. It has processes to access and channel group wisdom
into action. We argue the IETF is regenerative and leverages its collective intelligence. Our
research can offer insights to organizations and communities seeking to create better
technology for the good of humanity.

The first part of our research explores the IETF as a living system based on our participation
and observations mapped to the patterns from three different pattern languages. In this section
we explore how Identity, Culture, Process, Governance, Tooling, and Knowledge all shape a
deeper IETF Purpose.

The second part of the report thoroughly explores how the IETF is regenerative. We use the
patterns from the pattern languages as lenses to understand how the organization works. We
detail how these patterns appear within the IETF as it operates."


[[Category:Peergovernance]]

[[Category:P2P Infrastructure]]

[[Category:Governance]]
[[Category:Standards]]
[[Category:Movements]]