Fwd: IAB Response to an Appeal from J-F C. Morfin dd 29 September 2008
Martin Duerst <duerst <at> it.aoyama.ac.jp>
2009-01-28 11:46:38 GMT
FYI (for your information). Regards, Martin.
>From: IAB Chair <iab-chair <at> ietf.org>
>To: jefsey <at> jefsey.com, ietf-announce <at> ietf.org
>Subject: IAB Response to an Appeal from J-F C. Morfin dd 29 September 2008
>Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:54:11 -0800 (PST)
>List-Id: "IETF announcement list. No discussions." <ietf-announce.ietf.org>
>IAB Response to an Appeal from J-F C. Morfin.
>
>On 29 November 2008 the IAB received an appeal from J-F C. Morfin,
>related to an earlier appeal from Mr Morfin to the IESG that the IESG
>rejected on 29 September 2008.
>
>Mr Morfin's appeal includes significant background material, as well as
>details of the original appeal to the IESG. In the section "Matter of the
>appeal", Mr Morfin appears to accept the IESG's decision in this specific
>case, and raises a number of points related to it.
>
>The IAB understands the relevant points to be these:
>
>1. The IETF should be watching out for the good of the Internet, and when
>something comes up in that regard -- particularly related to
>interoperability -- it should supersede the charter of a Working Group or
>a decision of a WG chair or an Area Director.
>
>2. Challenges to Working Group deliverables on interoperability grounds
>should never be considered off topic.
>
>3. Some documents should have a "Precaution Considerations" section that
>discusses what precautions have been taken to "preserve present and future
>interoperabilities as well as users' requests".
>
>There does not appear to be anything in the IESG's response to Mr
>Morfin's original appeal that Mr Morfin is directly contesting. Further,
>the IAB, in reviewing that appeal, finds the IESG's response to be
>correct. Therefore, the IAB's direct response to this appeal is to
>support the IESG's earlier decision.
>
>Beyond that, the IAB considered Mr Morfin's points:
>
>The IAB considered Mr Morfin's allegation that IETF participants are
>unconcerned with the needs of end users, and found this allegation to be
>baseless and without merit. To the contrary, the needs of Internet users
>are very important to the IETF, to ensure the relevance of its output, and
>that importance is reflected in IETF processes and practice. The role of
>the IETF is to provide a venue for individuals working on networking
>hardware or software (whether commercial or free) to get together and
>agree on how those networking devices should interoperate to everyone's
>mutual benefit. That benefit would not be well served by ignoring the
>needs of users, and producing output that no one wants.
>
>The IAB considered Mr Morfin's allegation that IETF participants are
>insufficiently concerned with interoperability problems that may result
>from their work, and found this allegation to be baseless and without
>merit. Challenges to the quality and interoperability prospects of
>Working Group deliverables are taken seriously and are generally
>considered to be in scope when they are first raised. Once decisions are
>made -- usually by rough consensus -- raising the same issues repeatedly
>is not accepted. This is correct: the Working Group must make progress in
>its work, rather than spend its time revisiting old issues when there's
>nothing new added. In fact, in the case that prompted this appeal, Mr
>Morfin agrees that the upholding of the Working Group chair's decision was
>proper.
>
>The IAB considered Mr Morfin's allegation that IETF participants are
>unconcerned with supporting multilingual text and the needs of
>non-English-speaking network users around the world, and found this
>allegation to be baseless and without merit. IETF participants are
>actively working in areas related to multilingual text, enabling more
>multilingual use of the Internet. As to multilingual participation in the
>IETF: any organization doing the sort of work that the IETF does must have
>a lingua franca in which to work. Most engineering and scientific
>organizations use English as that language, and it seems best for the IETF
>to do so as well. It is our judgment that IETF participants generally do
>make a strong effort to understand those whose written or spoken English
>skills are imperfect. Being a worldwide organization, the IETF welcomes
>engineering contributions from individuals everywhere, both from native
>English speakers and from those for whom English is not the first
>language.
>
>The IAB considered Mr Morfin's allegation that end users are "banned"
>from IETF participation, and found this allegation to be baseless and
>without merit. The IETF is open to anyone who has access to email and
>makes the effort to participate and contribute, and the IETF welcomes and
>actively encourages participation from any individual who wishes to
>contribute in good faith.
>
>The IAB notes that making a worthwhile contribution does take effort.
>Showing up unprepared and espousing uninformed opinions takes little
>effort, but such behavior rarely amounts to a useful contribution.
>Similarly, repeatedly raising the same issues or pursuing a specific
>agenda that differs from that of the Working Group disrupts progress. To
>safeguard against such disruptive behavior, the IETF has procedures,
>outlined in RFC 3683, for banning a disruptive individual from posting to
>Working Group mailing lists, but this is uncommon, and has only happened
>twice since RFC 3683 was published in March 2004.
>
>
>For the IAB,
>
>--Olaf Kolkman,
> IAB Chair.
>_______________________________________________
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#-#-# Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp mailto:duerst <at> it.aoyama.ac.jp
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