Quite the contrary. I am interpreting a few of the 'diversity' posts as saying the IETF has fewer companies participating and much fewer smaller companies participating. And I am interpreting those posts as implying some nefarious plot on the part of large, Western, White-European-Male-Dominated companies to make it that way. I was just positing that the IETF might be reflective of the networking industry as a whole.
My thesis, not at all proven and one I am not married to, is there are fewer *companies* out there. With fewer companies, we should not be surprised there are fewer companies participating. On the big side, a ton of major players either merged or left the business. On the small side, a bunch of companies either got acquired or went bankrupt. Fred Baker and Keith Moore have it right: we need to attract new blood. On Mar 21, 2013, at 1:01 AM, Hector Santos <hsan...@isdg.net> wrote: > On 3/20/2013 3:18 PM, Eric Burger wrote: > > > How much is the concentration of corporate participation in > > the IETF a result of market forces, like consolidation and > > bankruptcy, as opposed to nefarious forces, like a company > > hiring all of the I* leadership? We have mechanisms to deal > > with the latter, but there is not much we can do about the > > former. > > I am not catching the question. Are you concern there is an increasing > potential for a "conflict of interest" loophole the IETF may no longer afford > to manage and control? > > We will always have Cooperative Competition. The IETF damage can only be to > sanction the standardization of a problematic method or technology and/or the > straggle hold of a market direction. Generally, the market will speak for > itself. We need the market and technology leaders for the rest to follow, > but the IETF role should continue to be the gatekeeper and watchdog for open > and public domain standards. > > -- > HLS >
