[ih] This Review is for Everyone

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

RFC 2028 (among other places) says, “Internet standardization is an organized activity of the ISOC,” and also said that the IETF, “is the principal body engaged in the development of new Internet Standard specifications.” By substitution, that appears to me to say that the IETF is engaged in an organized activity of ISOC.  So it’s true that it doesn’t say the IETF is itself an organized activity of the Internet Society, but I’m not sure my glasses have the magnification necessary to split the hairs involved in the distinction I think you’re making. 

Like it or not, all the legal existence of the IETF is subordinate to the Internet Society. I’m perfectly aware of the practicalities of how the relationship really operates, but this got started due to Brian’s nit on Sir Tim’s book.  Given the purposes to which the ordinary reader is likely to put the definition in that book, I suspect what was intended was a short and simple statement about the legal arrangements surrounding the ietf so that a reader can put their arms around “what’s an ietf?”  I suppose that a footnote sending the interested reader to all the IETF documents about this might encourage a fully informed view. 

(I don’t really have any dog in this fight though, so if people think I’m wrong I will be cheerfully silent while I am corrected by others. I will note that I did for 6 years bear legal responsibility of the upshot of all this, so I have more than a passing familiarity with the relevant documents.)

Best regards,

A

— 
Andrew Sullivan 
Please excuse my clumbsy thums

> On Mar 12, 2026, at 11:42, Dave Crocker via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> On 3/12/2026 8:34 AM, Andrew Sullivan via Internet-history wrote:
>>> On Thu, Mar 12, 2026 at 03:09:41PM -0500, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
>>> 'non-profit' seems entirely apt.
>> 
>> Quite apart from that, with essentially all the administrative responsibility controlled by bodies the members of which are mostly appointed by the IETF NomCom, with the disregarded entity structure of the IETF Administration LLC, with multiple staff members employed by IETF Administration LLC, with active fundraising efforts ongoing, and with a budget if memory serves some distance north of $10 MM annually, it's getting a little precious to maintain that the IETF isn't the organization--indeed, that the IETF isn't an organization at all--and that IETF Administration LLC is some other entity, accidentally named similarly but that _isn't_ the IETF.  I think this pose mostly worked as long as the IETF was an "organized activity" of the Internet Society, but I don't believe anyone can take it really seriously as a description of the facts of the world any more.
> 
> 
> Except is isn't an activity of ISOC.  And never has been.
> 
> The relationship between the IETF and ISOC is interesting, IMO, since it is quite unusual and nuanced, and has typically been publicly presented as neither.
> 
> At base, the IETF contracts with ISOC for a collection of services.  Funding, oversight, etc.
> 
> So, it looks as if ISOC is 'over' the IETF and it has usually been presented that way, but it isn't the actual nature of the locus of control.
> 
> d/
> 
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> Dave Crocker
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