[ih] This Review is for Everyone

[Dave Crocker]

On 3/12/2026 9:56 AM, Craig Partridge wrote:
>
> As you well know, the IETF did exist before ISOC.  But we had to 
> reverse engineer things so that when ISOC was created, IETF was 
> subordinate to it, so you that you and I (and others) as members of 
> the then IESG and IETF would not be sued for standards decisions.
>
> As a result, I suspect if ISOC disappeared now, yes IETF would too...


I suspect it wouldn't.  And I was not (merely) being snarky.

Unless things have changed profoundly, in recent years, ISOC provides no 
operational direction to the IETF and never has.  When I say the IETF 
'contracted with' ISOC for some services, I mean that as substantive, 
relational reality.

It's not that the services ISOC provides are not valuable, but that they 
were delegated /to/ ISOC, rather than coming /from/ within ISOC and then 
being imposed on t/he IETF.

In operational terms, nothing about the way IETF has ever conducted its 
decision-processes has ever had a feeling of subordination to ISOC.  (I 
suppose annual funding discussions might be taken as, at most, roughly 
egalitarian.)

I'll add that nothing about ISOC's conduct -- unless this has changed in 
very recent years -- has ever had the tone of a superior.  Quite the 
opposite, based on the diligent caution I always saw, in how ISOC 
interacted with the IETF.

Ignoring who generated what and why, note that be basic creation history 
was:

    1986: IAB and IETF formed

    1989: IETF Area Directors first appointed

    1992:  Kobe Trauma, Poised working group, authority revision

    1992: ISOC formed.

As one of those first Area directors, the facts and tone of that 
sequence were interesting.

The IETF was fully subordinate to IAB authority, which was quite 
vigorously asserted.

What I'm calling the Kobe Trauma happened three years later, producing 
what was largely a reversal of the authority relationship, in terms of 
IETF operations.

Up through the formation of ISOC, these activities survived with what 
was sometimes called a "Daddy Pays" model.  Arguably, that's still the 
model, although Daddy now pays only a percentage.  But even when it was 
earlier Daddies, the sources of funding exerted close to no visible 
control over the processes.

If ISOC went away, the IETF would have a funding shortfall, and it would 
have some holes in its oversight and appointment model.

Funding is called that because it is never fun to satisfy the 
requirement, but I suspect it would at least be a tractable task. 
Filling the other holes would probably be no more than a hassle.


d/

-- 
Dave Crocker

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