Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> writes:
On 1/7/19 10:06 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
Speaking as someone who is a listed author on three published RFCs and
chaired one IETF working group, I will take Debian process over IETF
process any day, and find your description of the IETF pretty
entertaining. :)
Well yeah, but which "works" better in terms of results? Particularly,
as viewed by those who are impacted by the process?
Oh, Debian, by far. Debian is massively more productive than the IETF per
unit of effort put in the front end. Now, some of that is the nature of
standards development, which is inherently hard and much more contentious
than nearly all packaging problems. But Debian puts far more work out in
the world, faster, than the IETF does relative to the resources invested.
That's part of why I'd rather work on Debian Policy than on IETF
standards. IETF standards are very valuable, but the process redefines
the concept of slow and tedious. And frequently, if there's no consensus,
nothing happens at all in the IETF for literally years. (Not that this
nevery happens in Debian *cough*, but it's less common and it's usually
only relatively less important things.)
That's fine, to be clear. I don't think that's a flaw in the IETF. The
IETF is trying to do one thing (create general standards for the Internet)
and Debian is trying to do something far, far different and more immediate
(create and maintain a usable operating system that runs on real-world
computers). Obviously they will be organized differently along the lines
required to achieve those goals. But the IETF, particularly in recent
years, has increasingly become an industry consortium in which
representatives of companies negotiate with each other over how to
implement interoperable standards for their products. Not a community of
hobbyists who are building something in large part for the joy of it.
The IETF is an excellent example of an organization where you largely have
to pay people to get them to participate in it. There are certainly some
people who participate in IETF working groups for fun, but compared to
Debian I'm fairly sure it's limited. People largely participate in the
IETF because they're trying to accomplish something specific *outside* the
IETF for which an IETF standard would be useful, or because they're being
paid to do so. Not, at least to the degree that is the case in Debian,
because participating is *itself* fun and exciting and meaningful.