Re: The "purpose of the IETF" thing

[Margaret Wasserman <mrw@windriver.com>]

At 07:50 AM 7/25/2003 -0700, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> I think the "high quality, relevant standards for the Internet" is a fine 
> capsule description of *one* thing we do. But we do other things 
> (operational discussions, experimentation, community building) that should 
> not be regarded as secondary.
I agree.  A mission statement also usually contains more of they
"why" or "how" than "produce high quality, relevant standards".  As
I indicated in my earlier message, I think that it isn't enough to
produce high-quality relevant standards -- we care about _how_ the
standards are produced (openness and fairness, etc.) and we have
shared values about _why_ we're producing those standards (building
a secure, stable, accessible Internet that embodies user empowerment).

A wise man once said:

"The Internet isn't value-neutral, and neither is its standards body."

I don't think that our missions statement should be value-neutral
either.

Margaret




> That's the other reason (apart from not figuring out how to socialize the 
> definition) that I haven't pushed as hard as I could on making this 
> concept "public" since London.
>
> Another point on mission statement I heard from someone: The chief benefit 
> of the mission statement exercise is often not to the people reading the 
> mission statement - it's on the people who help develop it.... because 
> they are forced to think about it......
>
> How do we maximize that benefit?
>
>                    Harald