[ih] This Review is for Everyone

[Lixia Zhang]

My memory is a bit vague too, I largely agree with what Noel said below and I'd add just a bit more of my own observation: starting from the first GADS meeting, the split of interests showed up clearly: some people really wanted/needed to address burning issues from operations, while some others, especially Dave (Mills), were interested in more of blue sky research ideas (I recall he already started on the NTP work).
I agree with Noel about Dave's skills, but I think his interest is a factor too.

Lixia

> On Mar 22, 2026, at 5:20 PM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
>> 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