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."