[ih] This Review is for Everyone

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Craig Partridge 

    > the Internet Architecture TF (INarc). INarc split in 1986 into IETF,
    > ... and a more experiment/future-focused task force (may still have
    > been called INarc, I can't recall -- Dave Mills chaired it and it
    > persisted until c. 1991). I was not privy to the dynamics that led to
    > the split other than hearing rumors that there were too many
    > operational problems that required attention

Now that Dave is no longer with us, I guess I can be blunt and frank about
this. Dave did the best he could, but he just did not have the skills needed
to be in charge of a large group of people working on something that needed
major attention Right Now. Don't get me wrong, he was a nice guy, smart, and
all, but the person in charge of the nascent IETF needed a rare mix of skills
- and Dave didn't have them all. I have the impression that this was made
clear to us all, watching the job he did running a meeting or two of the
pre-split InArc; IIRC, among other issues, he tended to get diverted onto
interesting technical issues which weren't on the 'fix this _today_' path.

It's not that we needed someone to land on people - the group all knew we had
a tremendous opportunity available (in fact, a _far_ bigger one than I think
any of us saw), no pushing was needed. But 'herding cats' is a rare skill
(especially at the start, when we didn't have any history in the
organizational to guide us as to the style of leadersip needed to achieve
that).

	Noel