RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Worley, Dale R (Dale)]

> From: Hannes Tschofenig [hannes.tschofe...@nsn.com]
> 
> In the telecommunication industry you have also seen a lot of layoffs over
> the last 10 years and so there are rarely young people around in these
> companies anymore (because they either got fired or left the company
> voluntarily).

... or weren't hired in the first place.

If a company has no higher head-count now than 10 years ago, the only
young people who have been hired were hired because they were cheaper
than the older people who have been laid off.  People like that often
either leave for better opportunities, or aren't up to standards work.

For that matter, is the network industry growing?  Almost all IETF
work is at layers 3 to 6; what has been the consumption of new people
in those parts of the industry?

Dale

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Hector Santos]

Marshall Eubanks wrote:


True, but that does not mean that you should decide that there is
nothing the IETF can do to change those characteristics or is in fact
doing albeit unintentionally.


So, what would you do to adjust things ?

Regards
Marshall


Some suggestions:

 - Increase IETF brand awareness
   - Leverage the IETF Brand
   - FaceBook page
   - Twitter account
   - Better On-line Access/Participation
   - Forums based communications
  - Offer personalization profiling
 - Photos, etc, "face behind name"
   - IETF "Radio"

 - Encourage elders, veterans Mentoring
 - ID, RFC development
- Discourage "Use Usual Editors" mindset
 - Consider "PWG "Preliminary Working Groups" to sense full WG
- Often decision left to the certain few (high barrier)

on an indirect but I believe part of the improving IETF
brand and image:

- Serious review of "Rough Consensus" process
   - Technical Advisors need to get involved earlier

 - Leverage Assets
 - RFC format as a Tech Writing model for Engineering Students
 - Professional Trade member/certification "badge"
 - IETF membership subscriptions
- Discounts

 - Seek more academia, industry, govt joint ventures
 - Summer "IETF" Internship
 - Start up, grants
 - Resource site

 - Assistance, Awareness with Legal, IP issues (international, etc)

 - Personally, increase the quality of work, minimize the "Fix it
   later" mindset - major turn off for young people IMV.

And perhaps, hire a PR, technical sales consultant who knows the 
subtleties of what comes first; Marketing or Technology.


--
Sincerely

Hector Santos
http://www.santronics.com
jabber: hec...@jabber.isdg.net

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 2012-05-05 04:48, Yoav Nir wrote:
...
> an obvious idea would be to change the requirements for a new work item from 
> "rough consensus" to "a bunch of people willing to do the work and at least 
> one willing to implement".  Some working groups already work like this, but 
> it's not universal.

There's nothing to stop a group of people developing a specification
as an I-D and prototyping it. They don't need a WG or a BOF or a
sponsoring AD.

The barrier for spending collective resources (WG time, AD time, RFC
Editor time, IANA time) on it should be real, IMHO.

On 2012-05-06 04:52, Hannes Tschofenig wrote:
...
> My point is that you will not find interest from young engineers to work on
> 10 year old topics. You can try it yourself: give a talk at a university and
> see the reaction from the students. Pick a lower-layer topic and a topic
> from the application layer (some Web stuff).

It's true. But the fact is that as in any major technical system, neglect
of the infrastructure is a very bad idea. Just consider what happens to
a city if it ignores the sewers and water pipes. Sorry to say that the
IETF (and the operators who read RFCs) are in the same position as
municipal utilities. It's hard to get students interested in sanitary
engineering.

   Brian

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Hannes Tschofenig]

> As a counter-point (which supports your position ) the creation of
> the CODEC WG has actually brought a number of people/companies into
> active IETF involvement that were likely never involved before.

Right. 

Whether that working group also attracted the type of people PHB or others
want is something I cannot judge.

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Hannes Tschofenig]

Hi Martin, 

The DNT privacy work was just an example of something that did not work out.
At this point in time the details don't matter anymore since the work
already happens at the W3C.

My point is that you will not find interest from young engineers to work on
10 year old topics. You can try it yourself: give a talk at a university and
see the reaction from the students. Pick a lower-layer topic and a topic
from the application layer (some Web stuff).

Ciao
Hannes
 
On 5/2/12 11:07 PM, "ext Martin Rex"  wrote:

> Hannes Tschofenig wrote:
>> 
>> When people suggest new work to the IETF they often see a strange
>> reaction. I remember when Mozilla came to the IETF and proposed to
>> work on the privacy topic "Do Not Track". I couldn't find support
>> for doing the work in the IETF. I don't exactly know why people
>> didn't like it but the W3C immediately picked it up and had seen
>> lots of new companies (mostly from the advertising industry)
>> joining the W3C.
> 
> What exactly to you mean by "came to the IETF and proposed to work
> on the privacy topic"?
> 
> What is the I-D that you submitted and how many volunteers were there
> to do the work?  And who opposed that you do the work within the
> IETF?
> 
> What usually does not work in the IETF is that you "drop off" an idea
> and "pick up" a standard some time later...
> 
> -Martin

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Hannes Tschofenig]

Hi Avri, 

> It may not be line a hiring manager, but all those who have budget can make it
> a point to make sure some of the younger engineers get to some of the
> meetings, at least the ones that are relatively local to them.  I assume that
> many of the older participants, have the means to influence the travel lists.
> For years there have been people working on the gender balance perhaps some
> focus on the age balance may become appropriate.

My experience in selecting people who go to standards organizations is a bit
different. Managers typically don't pick people based on discussion skills,
social kills, communication + language skills, writing skills, hair color,
etc. Instead, those who suggest topics and raise their hand at the right
time go to meetings and work on selected topics. There are not that many
people available who are interested in this type of work.

Then, there is an incredible stickiness for staying within the same
organization. If you have started attending 3GPP meetings then you typically
go there forever. You may switch groups and topics (within an organization)
but you rarely see people switching organizations.

In the telecommunication industry you have also seen a lot of layoffs over
the last 10 years and so there are rarely young people around in these
companies anymore (because they either got fired or left the company
voluntarily). 
 
Ciao
Hannes

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Yoav Nir]

On May 5, 2012, at 4:58 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker  wrote:
>> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Hannes Tschofenig
>>  wrote:
>>> Hi PHB,
>>> 
>>> the IETF is not like an enterprise where you can decide (as part of the 
>>> hiring process) what characteristics your employees should have.
>> 
>> True, but that does not mean that you should decide that there is
>> nothing the IETF can do to change those characteristics or is in fact
>> doing albeit unintentionally.
> 
> So, what would you do to adjust things ?

I'm not PHB, but an obvious idea would be to change the requirements for a new 
work item from "rough consensus" to "a bunch of people willing to do the work 
and at least one willing to implement".  Some working groups already work like 
this, but it's not universal.

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Marshall Eubanks]

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker  wrote:
> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Hannes Tschofenig
>  wrote:
>> Hi PHB,
>>
>> the IETF is not like an enterprise where you can decide (as part of the 
>> hiring process) what characteristics your employees should have.
>
> True, but that does not mean that you should decide that there is
> nothing the IETF can do to change those characteristics or is in fact
> doing albeit unintentionally.

So, what would you do to adjust things ?

Regards
Marshall

>
>
>> In a volunteer organization the offered topics drive the participation. Ask 
>> yourself: what you as someone who just finished a university education want 
>> to hang around in the IETF to standardize yet another IPv4/IPv6 transition 
>> mechanism or to participate in the MPLS-TP discussions?
>
> That is one aspect that might influence the decision. But there is a
> huge amount of Internet development going on right now and the mean
> age of the developers writing protocols is likely in the 20s.
>
> The IETF has a security area and an Apps area, its not just routing.
>
>
>> When people suggest new work to the IETF they often see a strange reaction. 
>> I remember when Mozilla came to the IETF and proposed to work on the privacy 
>> topic "Do Not Track". I couldn't find support for doing the work in the 
>> IETF. I don't exactly know why people didn't like it but the W3C immediately 
>> picked it up and had seen lots of new companies (mostly from the advertising 
>> industry) joining the W3C.
>
>
> And often the people who show them the door are people who contribute
> absolutely nothing to the process other than their opinion. They don't
> have any pull with the parties that are needed to act to deploy, they
> don't have any real technical chops, they don't even have official
> positions often.
>
> But when proposals are raised in IETF it only takes five or six people
> in a WG who bring nothing to the table to kill an idea.
>
> Now that might be justified if the argument was that the idea was
> likely to cause actual damage. But when the argument is 'I am not
> convinced of the need for this' well whats the point?
>
>
> I have just finished a couple of drafts that I have strong backing for
> in my industry. The decision to deploy or not will be taken by my
> industry, not the IETF.
>
> The reason I raised this is that I can see a generation gap in my
> industry. The IETF has ceased to be the leading force in PKI standards
> development because the younger engineers don't want to have to engage
> here.
>
>
>
> --
> Website: http://hallambaker.com/

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Hannes Tschofenig
 wrote:
> Hi PHB,
>
> the IETF is not like an enterprise where you can decide (as part of the 
> hiring process) what characteristics your employees should have.

True, but that does not mean that you should decide that there is
nothing the IETF can do to change those characteristics or is in fact
doing albeit unintentionally.


> In a volunteer organization the offered topics drive the participation. Ask 
> yourself: what you as someone who just finished a university education want 
> to hang around in the IETF to standardize yet another IPv4/IPv6 transition 
> mechanism or to participate in the MPLS-TP discussions?

That is one aspect that might influence the decision. But there is a
huge amount of Internet development going on right now and the mean
age of the developers writing protocols is likely in the 20s.

The IETF has a security area and an Apps area, its not just routing.


> When people suggest new work to the IETF they often see a strange reaction. I 
> remember when Mozilla came to the IETF and proposed to work on the privacy 
> topic "Do Not Track". I couldn't find support for doing the work in the IETF. 
> I don't exactly know why people didn't like it but the W3C immediately picked 
> it up and had seen lots of new companies (mostly from the advertising 
> industry) joining the W3C.


And often the people who show them the door are people who contribute
absolutely nothing to the process other than their opinion. They don't
have any pull with the parties that are needed to act to deploy, they
don't have any real technical chops, they don't even have official
positions often.

But when proposals are raised in IETF it only takes five or six people
in a WG who bring nothing to the table to kill an idea.

Now that might be justified if the argument was that the idea was
likely to cause actual damage. But when the argument is 'I am not
convinced of the need for this' well whats the point?


I have just finished a couple of drafts that I have strong backing for
in my industry. The decision to deploy or not will be taken by my
industry, not the IETF.

The reason I raised this is that I can see a generation gap in my
industry. The IETF has ceased to be the leading force in PKI standards
development because the younger engineers don't want to have to engage
here.



-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[SM]

Hi John,
At 10:43 04-05-2012, John C Klensin wrote:

garb on a regular basis is unreasonable.  So, unless we want to
send the message that all of the senior members of the community
are necessarily male (and inclined to grow beards), we need to
find another term.


The term SIR was proposed instead of male and knighted.


IETF's sub-UI work.  Until and unless that case is made, I think
we need to be absolutely sure that capable and promising women
have at least as much opportunity to make useful contributions
in the IETF --including taking on leadership roles-- as capable
and promising men.  But, even a step or two in the direction of


There hasn't been any response to the gender note sent to another 
IETF mailing list a few days ago.  It's one thing to provide 
opportunities for women; making it happen is another story.  If you 
or anyone else know anyone who is interested, I'll contribute.



Let me also make a suggestion that I hope is constructive: the
newcomers meet-and-greet may be really helpful in giving the new
people a chance to meet some of those they should be working
with.   It would work better if a larger fraction of the
leadership sought out newcomers to talk with rather than
treating it as a pre-welcome-reception opportunity to talk with
each other, but I don't know how it fix that.   However those


It has an air of formality.  It's a constructive step though.

Currently, there's a two hour session for newcomers with around 65 
slides.  It's a lot of content, a lot of acronyms and a lot of rules 
and sub-rules.  There's also a two hour session about how to create 
I-D at the same time.  The newcomer has to choose between learning 
about the IETF or learning how to create I-Ds.  They then go into a 
room full of strange people where it is a miss and hit affair like 
Internet dating.



newcomer sessions don't --I suggest can't-- work for forming
mentoring relationships for two reasons.  First, the people who
should be most available for mentoring are those with
significant IETF experience who do not have present WG Chair,
IESG, or IAB responsibilities.  But those people are excluded
from the newcomers meet and greet sessions.  Second, it is just
too early, especially since we, as a community, have little
control over who will be back the second and third time and the
second and third year.  So I suggest we think about how to put
together 2nd-comer or 3rd-comer opportunities with potential
(and committed) mentors available and other attendance limited
to self-selected relatively new people (but normally not
first-timers) who are interested in that kind of experience and
support.


The 2nd-comer and 2rd-comer idea is interesting.  There is free time 
and free rooms on tutorial day.  How about getting a room, get people 
who are interested in there and send an informal invitation to the 
attendees?  You could even have affinity groups to avoid the old-boys 
club atmosphere.


Regards,
-sm 

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[John C Klensin]

--On Friday, May 04, 2012 11:01 -0700 Ted Hardie
 wrote:

> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:43 AM, John C Klensin
>  wrote:
> 
> "But, even a step or two in the direction of promoting or
> preferring less-able women in order to make IETF  bodies more
> diverse would be likely to result in shooting ourselves in our
> collective feet."
 
> I think the analysis here is subtly wrong.  If you have two
> candidates who can clearly do the job, it seems to imply that
> you should always still stack rank them and pick the higher
> ranked.  But that's a very local optimization.
> 
> Efforts to increase to diversity are a very different
> optimization--by making more visible that opportunities are
> present for all, these initiatives attempt to increase the
> pool of talent over time.  If people who would previously have
> left a field stay or folks who had not thought of entering a
> field do so, that field wins.  The scale of that win can be
> the field of  "Science, Technology, Engineering, Math" or it
> can be "working group leadership" or "the IETF".  But a bigger
> pool of talent to draw from is a big win for almost any sized
> field.

Ted,

I completely agree with that way of looking at things.  I was
reacting to something else --not a choice between "two
candidates who can clearly do the job" but to models that easily
can (and in some demonstrable cases in communities close to
ours, clearly have) shifted past that and into scoring systems
in which so much weight is given to diversity (by some measure)
that significantly less-qualified people --people who would be
unlikely to do as good a job or even an adequate one-- are
chosen in preference to more qualified ones who do not satisfy
the diversity criteria.  

I don't think the IETF wants to go there.  I'm reluctant to get
into name-calling by identifying examples of organizations
on-list that interact with the IETF that have gone down that
path, but will do so in private if needed.

   john

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Ted Hardie]

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 10:43 AM, John C Klensin  wrote:

"But, even a step or two in the direction of promoting or preferring
less-able women in order to make IETF  bodies more diverse would be
likely to result in shooting ourselves in our collective feet."

I think the analysis here is subtly wrong.  If you have two candidates
who can clearly do the job, it seems to imply that you should always
still stack rank them and pick the higher ranked.  But that's a very
local optimization.

Efforts to increase to diversity are a very different optimization--by
making more visible that opportunities are present for all, these
initiatives attempt to increase the pool of talent over time.  If
people who would previously have left a field stay or folks who had
not thought of entering a field do so, that field wins.  The scale of
that win can be the field of  "Science, Technology, Engineering, Math"
or it can be "working group leadership" or "the IETF".  But a bigger
pool of talent to draw from is a big win for almost any sized field.

regards,

Ted Hardie

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[John C Klensin]

--On Tuesday, May 01, 2012 19:07 -0800 Melinda Shore
 wrote:

> On 5/1/12 5:55 PM, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote:
>> What would be good patterns for those roles?
> 
> I don't know what John has in mind but it strikes me that every
> so often we get a wave of new participants (as new topics
> and/or
> work areas are introduced) and it seems to me that it would be
> valuable if people who've been through the process a time or
> three could help mentor people who are new to the IETF but have
> drafts that have been adopted.  Presumably they can help with
> process and culture issues, as well.

That is pretty much what I had in mind ... mostly one on one. I
also think that there is a similar role for/with, e.g.,
newly-minted WG Chairs and document editors with the "advisor"
concentrating at least as much on helping on teaching/ showing
someone the ropes as on providing technical advice or oversight
to the WG itself.  

This has some dangers, or at least issues, that I think we need
to keep in mind.  

First, Paul Hoffman is exactly right.  To elaborate on the way I
understood his comment, the IETF community has a tendency to
turn good informal ideas into detailed structures and
requirements.  For example, we have evolved "BOF" from
"AD-approved informal discussion of potential work items" into a
highly-structured near-requirement for WG formation with
specific roles, combined IESG and IAB reviews, guidelines for
success in RFCs, and so on.  We almost certainly do not need to
have WGs with two Co-chairs, a Secretary, a few Editors, a
Responsible AD, a Technical Advisor, and designated Watchers/
Mentors for each person in the first three of those categories.
Too much formalism, too top-heavy, and possibly another barrier
to WG creation (of which, IMO, we already have too many).

I'd rather see this kept a little more informal or maybe a lot
more informal.  An AD should definitely be able to move someone
into a Chair or Co-chair position with designated support, but
it is at least as important that people who have been around for
a while be able to spot potential new talent and offer advice
and coaching in an informal environment.

I do have two major concerns with the way in which the
discussion has evolved.  First, vocabulary affects how we think
or at least how others assume we think.  "Greybeard" is a nasty
example of that because, no matter how much experience women
have in the IETF, few of them will sport beards or any color
and, at the risk of a silly example, expecting them to don such
garb on a regular basis is unreasonable.  So, unless we want to
send the message that all of the senior members of the community
are necessarily male (and inclined to grow beards), we need to
find another term.  

At the same time, while I'm all in favor of members of
particular communities drawing together to share experiences and
ways of coping with "the system", moves toward talking about the
IETF context in terms of "gender diversity" (or any other type
of "diversity") strike me as risky for the community.  If the
IETF were doing more user interface work, there would be a
really strong argument for making sure the IETF, or at least the
relevant WGs, were diverse enough to reflect the broader
community.   But I don't think that anyone has made a convincing
case that there is anything inherently "male" (or "northern", or
"white", or...) about TCP, IP, or much of anything else in the
IETF's sub-UI work.  Until and unless that case is made, I think
we need to be absolutely sure that capable and promising women
have at least as much opportunity to make useful contributions
in the IETF --including taking on leadership roles-- as capable
and promising men.  But, even a step or two in the direction of
promoting or preferring less-able women in order to make IETF
bodies more diverse would be likely to result in shooting
ourselves in our collective feet.

Let me also make a suggestion that I hope is constructive: the
newcomers meet-and-greet may be really helpful in giving the new
people a chance to meet some of those they should be working
with.   It would work better if a larger fraction of the
leadership sought out newcomers to talk with rather than
treating it as a pre-welcome-reception opportunity to talk with
each other, but I don't know how it fix that.   However those
newcomer sessions don't --I suggest can't-- work for forming
mentoring relationships for two reasons.  First, the people who
should be most available for mentoring are those with
significant IETF experience who do not have present WG Chair,
IESG, or IAB responsibilities.  But those people are excluded
from the newcomers meet and greet sessions.  Second, it is just
too early, especially since we, as a community, have little
control over who will be back the second and third time and the
second and third year.  So I suggest we think about how to put
together 2nd-comer or 3rd-comer opportunities with potential
(and committed) mentors available and other attenda

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

It may not be line a hiring manager, but all those who have budget can make it 
a point to make sure some of the younger engineers get to some of the meetings, 
at least the ones that are relatively local to them.  I assume that many of the 
older participants, have the means to influence the travel lists.  For years 
there have been people working on the gender balance perhaps some focus on the 
age balance may become appropriate.

It was good, though to see that the distribution was not too skewed toward the 
older participants.

As for bringing new work in, doesn't that take a plan for introducing the 
subject and showing why it is relevant to the IETF community. Although, knowing 
you, you probably had such a plan.  I think that the technical privacy issues, 
for example, while belonging in the IETF, might still feel strange to some of 
the traditional engineering participants.  So in this case, you may need to 
promote a slight cultural change that accepts privacy as a requirement as well 
as the technical challenge of the issue.

avri



On 2 May 2012, at 15:14, Hannes Tschofenig wrote:

> Hi PHB, 
> 
> the IETF is not like an enterprise where you can decide (as part of the 
> hiring process) what characteristics your employees should have. 
> 
> In a volunteer organization the offered topics drive the participation. Ask 
> yourself: what you as someone who just finished a university education want 
> to hang around in the IETF to standardize yet another IPv4/IPv6 transition 
> mechanism or to participate in the MPLS-TP discussions?
> 
> When people suggest new work to the IETF they often see a strange reaction. I 
> remember when Mozilla came to the IETF and proposed to work on the privacy 
> topic "Do Not Track". I couldn't find support for doing the work in the IETF. 
> I don't exactly know why people didn't like it but the W3C immediately picked 
> it up and had seen lots of new companies (mostly from the advertising 
> industry) joining the W3C. 
> 
> Ciao
> Hannes
> 
> 

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Martin Rex]

Hannes Tschofenig wrote:
> 
> When people suggest new work to the IETF they often see a strange
> reaction. I remember when Mozilla came to the IETF and proposed to
> work on the privacy topic "Do Not Track". I couldn't find support
> for doing the work in the IETF. I don't exactly know why people
> didn't like it but the W3C immediately picked it up and had seen
> lots of new companies (mostly from the advertising industry)
> joining the W3C. 

What exactly to you mean by "came to the IETF and proposed to work
on the privacy topic"?

What is the I-D that you submitted and how many volunteers were there
to do the work?  And who opposed that you do the work within the
IETF?

What usually does not work in the IETF is that you "drop off" an idea
and "pick up" a standard some time later...

-Martin

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Dave Crocker]

Howevermuch the answer to the Subject question was not true when the 
thread started, it's true now...


d/

--
 Dave Crocker
 Brandenburg InternetWorking
 bbiw.net

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Kevin P. Fleming]

On 05/02/2012 02:14 PM, Hannes Tschofenig wrote:

When people suggest new work to the IETF they often see a strange reaction. I remember 
when Mozilla came to the IETF and proposed to work on the privacy topic "Do Not 
Track". I couldn't find support for doing the work in the IETF. I don't exactly know 
why people didn't like it but the W3C immediately picked it up and had seen lots of new 
companies (mostly from the advertising industry) joining the W3C.


As a counter-point (which supports your position ) the creation of 
the CODEC WG has actually brought a number of people/companies into 
active IETF involvement that were likely never involved before.


--
Kevin P. Fleming
Digium, Inc. | Director of Software Technologies
Jabber: kflem...@digium.com | SIP: kpflem...@digium.com | Skype: kpfleming
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - USA
Check us out at www.digium.com & www.asterisk.org

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Hannes Tschofenig]

Hi PHB, 

the IETF is not like an enterprise where you can decide (as part of the hiring 
process) what characteristics your employees should have. 

In a volunteer organization the offered topics drive the participation. Ask 
yourself: what you as someone who just finished a university education want to 
hang around in the IETF to standardize yet another IPv4/IPv6 transition 
mechanism or to participate in the MPLS-TP discussions?

When people suggest new work to the IETF they often see a strange reaction. I 
remember when Mozilla came to the IETF and proposed to work on the privacy 
topic "Do Not Track". I couldn't find support for doing the work in the IETF. I 
don't exactly know why people didn't like it but the W3C immediately picked it 
up and had seen lots of new companies (mostly from the advertising industry) 
joining the W3C. 

Ciao
Hannes

On Apr 27, 2012, at 5:06 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years
> ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later
> that still seems to be the case.
> 
> I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but not as
> many as I think there should be. By now at least a third of the
> organization should be younger than me, preferably half. That is
> certainly not what I see when I attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of
> women is also highly noticeable.
> 
> If this is the case it should worry us greatly. But first I think we
> need to determine if it is the case or not. I suggest an optional
> demographic survey of participants in the next IETF meeting to be
> repeated at regular intervals (no more than 5 years apart).
> 
> People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
> should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
> younger members is going to die.
> 
> -- 
> Website: http://hallambaker.com/

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Dave Crocker]

On 5/2/2012 8:11 AM, Scott Brim wrote:

Here I'm not so sure.  While retaining the basic mission statement,
IETF culture_should_  change, to fit the times and to be relevant.



While true, it should be a balancing act, between adapting methods to 
the times, while preserving core values.


Original core values of IETF technical work were relative simplicity of 
design and immediacy of utility.  We pressed to get something useful 
working as quickly as we could and then to evolve it.


That still happens.  Sometimes.

d/

--
 Dave Crocker
 Brandenburg InternetWorking
 bbiw.net

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Scott Brim]

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 11:07 PM, Melinda Shore  wrote:
> I don't know what John has in mind but it strikes me that every
> so often we get a wave of new participants (as new topics and/or
> work areas are introduced) and it seems to me that it would be
> valuable if people who've been through the process a time or
> three could help mentor people who are new to the IETF but have
> drafts that have been adopted.

That happens pretty regularly.

> Presumably they can help with
> process and culture issues, as well.

Here I'm not so sure.  While retaining the basic mission statement,
IETF culture _should_ change, to fit the times and to be relevant.
I'm geezer category and I'm hoping the newer folks come up with a lot
more revolution than they have so far.  I look forward to it.

Scott

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Melinda Shore]

On 5/1/12 5:55 PM, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote:

What would be good patterns for those roles?


I don't know what John has in mind but it strikes me that every
so often we get a wave of new participants (as new topics and/or
work areas are introduced) and it seems to me that it would be
valuable if people who've been through the process a time or
three could help mentor people who are new to the IETF but have
drafts that have been adopted.  Presumably they can help with
process and culture issues, as well.

Melinda

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Worley, Dale R (Dale)]

From: John C Klensin [john-i...@jck.com]

The harder part
--because it does require community and leadership commitment --
is finding ways to make those mentoring/ advisory roles work.


What would be good patterns for those roles?

Dale

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[SM]

Hi John,
At 13:39 01-05-2012, John C Klensin wrote:

Speaking as a greybeard who doesn't particularly like the idea
of being culled, an alternative is to try to move such people on
to mentoring/ advisory roles (and the few tasks we have around
that _really_ need many years of experience) rather than
occupying roles that can be performed by others.  That is


The problem is that it can always be argued that many of the tasks 
around needs many years of experience.  That may explain why around 
50% of incumbents are returned.  It has been said that "service in 
the IETF's leadership bodies is a short-term contribution to the 
community, not a career".  Here's the incumbent rate at the middle 
level per area (caution advised as the figures are biased):


 APP  50%
 INT  50%
 RAI   0%
 OPS 50%
 RTG  50%
 SEC  50%
 TSV  67%


actually easily accomplished because it can be done unilaterally
by the older members of the community.  The harder part
--because it does require community and leadership commitment --
is finding ways to make those mentoring/ advisory roles work.


Yes.

Regards,
-sm 

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[John C Klensin]

--On Tuesday, May 01, 2012 15:15 -0400 "Worley, Dale R (Dale)"
 wrote:

>...
>  That is, to be aware of the need to keep the
> leadership corps continuously refreshed with younger and
> less-experienced people.  Which more or less requires a method
> of culling the greybeards, given that they don't conveniently
> die when they're 50.

Speaking as a greybeard who doesn't particularly like the idea
of being culled, an alternative is to try to move such people on
to mentoring/ advisory roles (and the few tasks we have around
that _really_ need many years of experience) rather than
occupying roles that can be performed by others.  That is
actually easily accomplished because it can be done unilaterally
by the older members of the community.  The harder part
--because it does require community and leadership commitment --
is finding ways to make those mentoring/ advisory roles work.

   john

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Worley, Dale R (Dale)]

> From: Mary Barnes [mary.ietf.bar...@gmail.com]
> 
> Personally, I think IETF has far more of an issue when it comes to
> cultural and gender diversity than it does with not having enough
> younger folks.  This is particularly visible in the leadership.

Given that one moves up in the IETF through gaining the respect of
people in the IETF (and particularly, those in leadership postitions),
it would be difficult to get true cultural diversity.  More likely, we
could assemble a panel of people with any required distribution of
demographic characteristics, but all of them would think like
"IETFers".

Gender diversity is similar to aging, IMO, in that it is hindered by
an accumulation of older participants in leadership positions.

One of the strengths of the IETF is that one acquires positions of
power gradually by accumulating respect of one's peers in the IETF --
that ensures that a company with an economic interest in a technical
decision has a hard time "packing" the IETF's decision-making process.
But that structure automatically makes the culture conservative, and
the higher leadership roles accumulate people with much experience.

John Klensin's concept of "leadership development" seems to be a way
to counteract this.  That is, to be aware of the need to keep the
leadership corps continuously refreshed with younger and
less-experienced people.  Which more or less requires a method of
culling the greybeards, given that they don't conveniently die when
they're 50.

Once there's an ongoing upward movement of people into leadership
positions, it's possible to ask whether women are specifically
inhibited from doing so, and if so, why and what can be done about it.

Dale

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Alia Atlas]

Mary,

I have to agree.  As is common, gender imbalance can be treated as a
joke only by those who
aren't affected.

For those of us without "male privilege" (or other types of course)
who have experienced the effects of subtle or blatant discrimination,
it is no joke.

Nor is it caused by a lack of interest or ability in technology - but
it is always easier to claim that
the issues are caused by women instead of the prevailing tech culture.
 Luckily, tech culture can vary significantly by organization.

This thread is the worst example I personally have seen in the IETF.

Alia

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 9:25 PM, Mary Barnes  wrote:
> One response below [MB].
>
> On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 1:53 PM, SM  wrote:
>>

>> Mary Barnes is the only participant who mentions the gender problem.  As
>> such, I gather that the IETF does not have a gender problem. :-)
>
>
> [MB] Yet again my point is being proven.   The reason others don't mention
> it is because they don't want to become the target of this sort of attitude
> AND they likely feel they have worked too hard to risk not being taken
> seriously. You might also consider this isn't the first time this issue has
> been raised.  I raised it in my Nomcom report in March 2010 and it was in
> the slides at the plenary. But, again, we are a very small minority here, so
> it really is hard to get recognition of this issue. [/MB]

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Mary Barnes]

One response below [MB].

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 1:53 PM, SM  wrote:

> At 07:41 27-04-2012, Yoav Nir wrote:
>
>> After each meeting, Ray sends out a survey to all participants. The
>> results from the latest one:
>>
>> When were you born?
>>
>>  Before 19502.9%
>>  1950 - 1960   16.6%
>>  1961 - 1970   33.7%
>>  1971 - 1980   32.8%
>>  After 198014.0%
>>
>
> These are the results from 2006:
>
>  Before 19506.8%
>   1950 - 1960   24.0%
>   1961 - 1970   33.9%
>   1971 - 1980   33.6%
>   After 1980 1.8%
>
> And 2010:
>
>  Before 19503.8%
>   1950 - 1960   21.0%
>   1961 - 1970   30.7%
>   1971 - 1980   37.0%
>   After 1980 7.6%
>
>
>  I think an earlier survey had the 1971-1980 crowd inch past the 1961-1970
>> one, but it does seem like the 30-50 age groups dominate. I don't believe
>> you really are among the youngest, and
>>
>
> Yes.
>
>
> At 07:59 27-04-2012, Dave Cridland wrote:
>
>> I think in general, the way to ensure the IETF is at the centre of
>> internet developments is to ensure it is a developer's organization,
>> as well as an SDO, and unfortunately it's lost this connection - if
>>
>
> Yes.
>
>
>  you want to get some advice for that mail client you're writing, the
>> IETF probably wouldn't help if you asked, and certainly wouldn't
>> spring to mind as the place to ask.
>>
>
> The IETF likes having a bad reputation.
>
>
> At 08:05 27-04-2012, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>
>> Many of the people doing the real work in CoRE are in their 20s, or have
>> left that age
>>
>
>  Age   = 100 - port_num
>
>  HTTP/CoRE  20
>  DNS 47
>
>
>  PS.: Please, don't take any of this seriously.  Except for the CoRE age
>> statistics.
>> Dave Cridland's observations also definitely don't apply to CoRE, except
>> that we do have the stunning range of experience that makes the IETF so
>> valuable.
>>
>
> I would say that new protocols in one area tends to attract younger folks.
>  For existing protocols, there is the aging factor shunning the younger
> folks away.
>
>
> At 08:08 27-04-2012, Mary Barnes wrote:
>
>> Personally, I think IETF has far more of an issue when it comes to
>> cultural and gender diversity than it does with not having enough younger
>> folks.  This is particularly visible in the leadership.
>>
>
>  IAB  12 M / 1 F
>  IESG 15 M
>  IAOC  8 M / 1 F
>  RSOC  9 M
>
>  RTG WGs -  4 F
>  INT WGs -  2 F
>  OPS WGs -  2 F
>  RAI WGs -  2 F
>  SEC WGs -  1 F
>  TSV WGs -  1 F
>  APP WGs - all M
>
> Mary Barnes is the only participant who mentions the gender problem.  As
> such, I gather that the IETF does not have a gender problem. :-)


[MB] Yet again my point is being proven.   The reason others don't mention
it is because they don't want to become the target of this sort of attitude
AND they likely feel they have worked too hard to risk not being taken
seriously. You might also consider this isn't the first time this issue has
been raised.  I raised it in my Nomcom report in March 2010 and it was in
the slides at the plenary. But, again, we are a very small minority here,
so it really is hard to get recognition of this issue. [/MB]


>
> At 08:57 27-04-2012, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote:
>
>> the politics or underlying needs of the "customer" population.  The
>> federal government of the United States was dominated by the clique of
>> its revolutionary leaders for 40 years, and hasn't had much trouble
>> recruiting enough new blood to maintain its power (if not its
>>
>
> Based on the above, it could be said that the IETF will keep aging for the
> next 10 years.
>
>
> At 10:13 27-04-2012, Melinda Shore wrote:
>
>> I didn't go to meetings for some number of years and when I
>> started going again I saw a *lot* of new faces, not all of
>> whom are young.  It seems to me that a static participant
>>
>> base would clearly be more of an issue than age, per se.
>>
>
> Yes.
>
> A static participant base encourages the privatization of working groups.
>  Instead of age, one could look at the number of meetings attended:
>
> In 2005:
>
>  1 6.6%
>  2 - 518.2%
>  6 - 10   16.8%
>  > 10 58.4%
>
> In 2010:
>
>  1 8.8%
>  2 - 520.0%
>  6 - 10   16.3%
>  > 10 55.0%
>
> If over 50% of the attendees is static, there is an aging process.
>  Newcomers may be around 15%.  Someone mentioned that there is a feeling of
> exclusion instead of inclusion.
>
>
> At 07:06 27-04-2012, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
>> People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
>> should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
>> younger members is going to die.
>>
>
> An institution that cannot recruit younger members is called a retirement
> home.
>
> Some time back, a saying was posted to this mailing list:
>
>  "Please be patient with the old folks"
>
> Regards,
> -sm
>
> P.S. Phillip made a second comment.  There are some parallels with
> Operation Legacy.
>

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[John C Klensin]

--On Friday, April 27, 2012 15:29 -0400 Phillip Hallam-Baker
 wrote:

> 55-65 (aging Cerf era grad students)

The "aging Cerf era grad students" and the rest of that cohort
are all over 65.  I'm probably the youngest of that group who
are still visible in the IETF and am older than that.  And I
think Bob Braden is on the high side of 70.

 john

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[John C Klensin]

--On Friday, April 27, 2012 13:24 -0700 Paul Hoffman
 wrote:

> On Apr 27, 2012, at 12:23 PM, John C Klensin wrote:
> 
>> At the risk of repeating something about which various ADs and
>> others have gotten an earful, unless there are very special
>> and unusual circumstances [Note 1], it is unwise to, e.g.,
>> have us chair a WG or assume many other leadership positions.
>> It is easy to say "So-and-so should chair this WG because,
>> based on a dozen before it, she knows how to do that".
>> Instead, it is better to find someone more junior and, if
>> appropriate, appoint the more senior people to advisory and
>> support roles.  
> 
> So in addition to "Secretary" and "Technical Advisor", we can
> start listing "Designated Greybeard". This is progress?

Actually, Paul, I'd consider the "Technical Advisor" title/role
to be completely adequate and appropriate if we were using it
better and more often.

   john

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years
>ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later
>that still seems to be the case.

I had my first Internet-Draft published in my teens, as one data point.

>I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but not as
>many as I think there should be. By now at least a third of the
>organization should be younger than me, preferably half. That is
>certainly not what I see when I attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of
>women is also highly noticeable.

What would they be doing in the IETF that they have been brought up to
try to achieve?
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[SM]

At 13:32 27-04-2012, Alissa Cooper wrote:
I don't think the meeting survey hasn't asked about gender in the 
past. Maybe it should.


Yes.

At 12:24 27-04-2012, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
I don't think that the relatively low numbers of women in the IETF 
leadership are necessarily indicative of a problem, because I think 
they roughly match the low percentage of women among IETF attendees.


It's hard to say (see above).

The question might be whether the culture perpetuates the gender 
and/or other issues.


At 14:35 27-04-2012, Robin Uyeshiro wrote:

A recent perspctive on that:


The STEM workforce in China is 40% and 24% in the U.S.

At 12:23 27-04-2012, John C Klensin wrote:

As long as a significant number of newcomers are appearing,
signs of an aging leadership are almost certainly a leadership
development problem (which could include insufficient


The newcomers may be appearing and disappearing.  It isn't possible 
to assess that from the figures I posted.  If the leadership is 
static, it affects the breath of perspectives.  It can also lead to inertia.



Just my opinion while striking my white beard (which I'd
probably be doing loudly at the microphone if this came up in a
plenary).


I suggest that the IETF publishes a BCP with the following rules for 
the mic line:


  Attended 1 meeting  -  5 mins
  Attended 2 meeting  -  4 mins
  Attended 3 meeting  -  3 mins
  Attended 4 meeting  -  2 mins
  Attended more than 4 - 1 min

Regards,
-sm 

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Melinda Shore]

On 4/27/12 11:24 AM, Margaret Wasserman wrote:

I don't even know if the lack of female attendance at the IETF is a
problem, because I don't know how our percentages map to the
percentage of female networking engineers in the industry, or to the
percentage of females who attend other major standards organizations,
like the IEEE or the 3GPP.  We are an engineering organization, so I
wouldn't expect us to be half women, because there are a lot more
male engineers than female ones.


Well, that's a problem.  It's a problem that's out-of-scope for
the IETF, but it's a problem.

I've generally found the IETF to be a positive environment for
women (remember Allison's women's lunches?) and in lo, these many
years I've been participating I can only think of one incident that
was clearly sexist (and that was just a few months ago) and only
think of one that made me wonder.  Other than that it's been
copacetic, mostly, I think, because the leadership does seem to
try to be mindful about this stuff.  It's easy not to be, so
all honor to whom honor is due, etc. etc. etc.

Melinda

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Robin Uyeshiro]

A recent perspctive on that:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/video/blog/2012/04/college_president_discu
sses_wo.html

-Original Message-
From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of
Margaret Wasserman
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 9:25 AM
To: SM
Cc: IETF Discussion Mailing List
Subject: Re: Is the IETF aging?



On Apr 27, 2012, at 2:53 PM, SM wrote:
> Mary Barnes is the only participant who mentions the gender problem.  As
such, I gather that the IETF does not have a gender problem. :-)

The rest of us are too busy struggling to succeed in this male-dominated
regime to have time to read these threads.  :-)

Seriously, though...

I don't think that the relatively low numbers of women in the IETF
leadership are necessarily indicative of a problem, because I think they
roughly match the low percentage of women among IETF attendees. 

I don't even know if the lack of female attendance at the IETF is a problem,
because I don't know how our percentages map to the percentage of female
networking engineers in the industry, or to the percentage of females who
attend other major standards organizations, like the IEEE or the 3GPP.  We
are an engineering organization, so I wouldn't expect us to be half women,
because there are a lot more male engineers than female ones.

If IETF meetings are attended by a lower percentage of women than IEEE or
3GPP meetings, and/or if we feel that our attendance is not proportional to
the number of women in our industry, then we might want to explore why that
happens, and consider some changes in our culture to address the causes.  We
shouldn't try to fix this particular aspect of our organization if it isn't
broken, though.

Margaret

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Joel jaeggli]

On 4/27/12 13:32 , Alissa Cooper wrote:
> On Apr 27, 2012, at 3:24 PM, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
>> I don't even know if the lack of female attendance at the IETF is a
>> problem, because I don't know how our percentages map to the
>> percentage of female networking engineers in the industry, 

Not a lot of people attending the IETF are what I'd call network engineers.

>> or to
>> the percentage of females who attend other major standards
>> organizations, like the IEEE or the 3GPP.
> 
> I don't think the meeting survey hasn't asked about gender in the
> past. Maybe it should.
> 
> 
> 

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Alissa Cooper]

On Apr 27, 2012, at 3:24 PM, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
> I don't even know if the lack of female attendance at the IETF is a problem, 
> because I don't know how our percentages map to the percentage of female 
> networking engineers in the industry, or to the percentage of females who 
> attend other major standards organizations, like the IEEE or the 3GPP.  

I don't think the meeting survey hasn't asked about gender in the past. Maybe 
it should.

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Paul Hoffman]

On Apr 27, 2012, at 12:23 PM, John C Klensin wrote:

> At the risk of repeating something about which various ADs and
> others have gotten an earful, unless there are very special and
> unusual circumstances [Note 1], it is unwise to, e.g., have us
> chair a WG or assume many other leadership positions.   It is
> easy to say "So-and-so should chair this WG because, based on a
> dozen before it, she knows how to do that".  Instead, it is
> better to find someone more junior and, if appropriate, appoint
> the more senior people to advisory and support roles.  

So in addition to "Secretary" and "Technical Advisor", we can start listing 
"Designated Greybeard". This is progress?

--Paul Hoffman

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Murray S. Kucherawy]

> -Original Message-
> From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of 
> Margaret Wasserman
> Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 12:25 PM
> To: SM
> Cc: IETF Discussion Mailing List
> Subject: Re: Is the IETF aging?
> 
> On Apr 27, 2012, at 2:53 PM, SM wrote:
> > Mary Barnes is the only participant who mentions the gender problem.
> As such, I gather that the IETF does not have a gender problem. :-)
> 
> The rest of us are too busy struggling to succeed in this male-
> dominated regime to have time to read these threads.  :-)

"tm;dr"?

-MSK

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

I have been taking a look at the series and the problem is that the
brackets are just not granular enough.

If you were born in 1970 you would be 25 in 1995, the year the dotcom
bubble started to inflate. That was a really good time for someone
with networking experience to be starting out.

If you were born in 1979 then you would have been finishing your
degree right around the time of the dotcom bubble bursting. Not that
that deterred everyone.

What I am getting at here is that the structure inside the 1970s
bracket may be rather significant. The survey results are consistent
with two separate interpretations:

1) There is a nice bell curve and nothing to worry about.

2) There is a large cluster aged 35-45 and a couple of bumps at 21-25
(grad students) and 55-65 (aging Cerf era grad students)


Another problem with the survey is that there is clearly a lot of
self-selection going on. We know how many people are on the IAB and
IESG so we can work out their response rate (>80%). Working out the
number of WG chairs that attended is a but trickier but there are 130
WGs and this would suggest a max of 260 chairs attending but not all
WGs meet and not all chairs attend yadda yadda. 80 chairs responded to
the survey. If we posit a number of 160 WG chairs attending (probably
high) then that would imply a 50% response rate.

Those figures suggest that the people with a greater investment in the
organization are more likely to respond.


Now I remember why I gave up as an experimentalist: You ask for
figures and then when you have them you find they don't answer your
question.

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Yoav Nir  wrote:
>
> On Apr 27, 2012, at 6:05 PM, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>
>> On Apr 27, 2012, at 16:41, Yoav Nir wrote:
>>
>>> Before 1950    2.9%
>>> 1950 - 1960   16.6%
>>> 1961 - 1970   33.7%
>>> 1971 - 1980   32.8%
>>> After 1980    14.0%
>>
>> Nice bell curve, יואב, but you can't pop that soap bubble of perception with 
>> the bluntness of raw data :-)
>
> Only 350 out of 1200 people answered the survey, so all caveats about bias 
> apply. It's also possible that the 20-somethings tend to sit in the back 
> more, and go to the microphone less. Maybe them young'uns are too busy 
> clicking "Like" on pictures of LOL-cats :-)
>
>> Maybe just the areas where PHB likes to work in are growing old? :-)
>
> The old people in the security area do tend to look older than the old people 
> in other areas. Maybe the bell curve for the security area is different.
>
>> Many of the people doing the real work in CoRE are in their 20s, or have 
>> left that age range just recently.  And no, they aren't all academics.  I 
>> think we have a healthy age mix, with some pretty good gray-haired input as 
>> well.
>>
>> I'm going to argue for an age column on the blue sheets so we get better 
>> data :-)
>>
>> Grüße, Carsten
>>
>> PS.: Please, don't take any of this seriously.  Except for the CoRE age 
>> statistics.
>> Dave Cridland's observations also definitely don't apply to CoRE, except 
>> that we do have the stunning range of experience that makes the IETF so 
>> valuable.
>>
>> PPS.: Is the overall median really 42?
>
> Wait a couple of years, and most participants won't get why "42" is funny.



-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Margaret Wasserman]

On Apr 27, 2012, at 2:53 PM, SM wrote:
> Mary Barnes is the only participant who mentions the gender problem.  As 
> such, I gather that the IETF does not have a gender problem. :-)

The rest of us are too busy struggling to succeed in this male-dominated regime 
to have time to read these threads.  :-)

Seriously, though...

I don't think that the relatively low numbers of women in the IETF leadership 
are necessarily indicative of a problem, because I think they roughly match the 
low percentage of women among IETF attendees. 

I don't even know if the lack of female attendance at the IETF is a problem, 
because I don't know how our percentages map to the percentage of female 
networking engineers in the industry, or to the percentage of females who 
attend other major standards organizations, like the IEEE or the 3GPP.  We are 
an engineering organization, so I wouldn't expect us to be half women, because 
there are a lot more male engineers than female ones.

If IETF meetings are attended by a lower percentage of women than IEEE or 3GPP 
meetings, and/or if we feel that our attendance is not proportional to the 
number of women in our industry, then we might want to explore why that 
happens, and consider some changes in our culture to address the causes.  We 
shouldn't try to fix this particular aspect of our organization if it isn't 
broken, though.

Margaret

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[John C Klensin]

--On Friday, April 27, 2012 10:34 -0700 Randy Bush
 wrote:

>> It seems to me that a static participant base would clearly
>> be more of an issue than age, per se.  There's pretty clearly
>> some churn, whether it's because of an influx of people from
>> a new (to the IETF) geographic area, or because of an influx
>> of people wanting to work on a new (to the IETF) problem
>> area, and that's a very, very, very good thing.
> 
> ietf, nanog, ripe, ... meetings all generally have 1/3
> newcomers.  janog less so.

In my capacity as possibly the second or third oldest character
still actively doing protocol development work in the IETF, I
defer to Randy (who is older :-)).  But let me suggest that the
problem isn't numbers or ratios.  It is what we do about
leadership development, including how we use whatever expertise
and perspective the geriatric contingent represents.

At the risk of repeating something about which various ADs and
others have gotten an earful, unless there are very special and
unusual circumstances [Note 1], it is unwise to, e.g., have us
chair a WG or assume many other leadership positions.   It is
easy to say "So-and-so should chair this WG because, based on a
dozen before it, she knows how to do that".  Instead, it is
better to find someone more junior and, if appropriate, appoint
the more senior people to advisory and support roles.  

We probably don't follow that principle often enough.  Perhaps
there are properties of our procedures and how we designate
roles that discourage it.  If so, we should fix that.  

As long as a significant number of newcomers are appearing,
signs of an aging leadership are almost certainly a leadership
development problem (which could include insufficient
advancement of people with several years, but not several
decades, or experience) and not merely an aging population
problem at the top.

Just my opinion while striking my white beard (which I'd
probably be doing loudly at the microphone if this came up in a
plenary).

john


[Note 1} I believe that my current co-chair role in EAI and Vint
Cerf's recent role in IDNABIS were, indeed, special
circumstances.  And I'm looking forward to completing EAI and
dropping out of that role almost as much as I think Vint was
looking forward to completing IDNABIS.

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[SM]

At 07:41 27-04-2012, Yoav Nir wrote:
After each meeting, Ray sends out a survey to all participants. The 
results from the latest one:


When were you born?

  Before 19502.9%
  1950 - 1960   16.6%
  1961 - 1970   33.7%
  1971 - 1980   32.8%
  After 198014.0%


These are the results from 2006:

  Before 19506.8%
   1950 - 1960   24.0%
   1961 - 1970   33.9%
   1971 - 1980   33.6%
   After 1980 1.8%

And 2010:

  Before 19503.8%
   1950 - 1960   21.0%
   1961 - 1970   30.7%
   1971 - 1980   37.0%
   After 1980 7.6%

I think an earlier survey had the 1971-1980 crowd inch past the 
1961-1970 one, but it does seem like the 30-50 age groups dominate. 
I don't believe you really are among the youngest, and


Yes.

At 07:59 27-04-2012, Dave Cridland wrote:

I think in general, the way to ensure the IETF is at the centre of
internet developments is to ensure it is a developer's organization,
as well as an SDO, and unfortunately it's lost this connection - if


Yes.


you want to get some advice for that mail client you're writing, the
IETF probably wouldn't help if you asked, and certainly wouldn't
spring to mind as the place to ask.


The IETF likes having a bad reputation.

At 08:05 27-04-2012, Carsten Bormann wrote:
Many of the people doing the real work in CoRE are in their 20s, or 
have left that age


 Age   = 100 - port_num

 HTTP/CoRE  20
 DNS 47

PS.: Please, don't take any of this seriously.  Except for the CoRE 
age statistics.
Dave Cridland's observations also definitely don't apply to CoRE, 
except that we do have the stunning range of experience that makes 
the IETF so valuable.


I would say that new protocols in one area tends to attract younger 
folks.  For existing protocols, there is the aging factor shunning 
the younger folks away.


At 08:08 27-04-2012, Mary Barnes wrote:
Personally, I think IETF has far more of an issue when it comes to 
cultural and gender diversity than it does with not having enough 
younger folks.  This is particularly visible in the leadership.


  IAB  12 M / 1 F
  IESG 15 M
  IAOC  8 M / 1 F
  RSOC  9 M

  RTG WGs -  4 F
  INT WGs -  2 F
  OPS WGs -  2 F
  RAI WGs -  2 F
  SEC WGs -  1 F
  TSV WGs -  1 F
  APP WGs - all M

Mary Barnes is the only participant who mentions the gender 
problem.  As such, I gather that the IETF does not have a gender problem. :-)


At 08:57 27-04-2012, Worley, Dale R (Dale) wrote:

the politics or underlying needs of the "customer" population.  The
federal government of the United States was dominated by the clique of
its revolutionary leaders for 40 years, and hasn't had much trouble
recruiting enough new blood to maintain its power (if not its


Based on the above, it could be said that the IETF will keep aging 
for the next 10 years.


At 10:13 27-04-2012, Melinda Shore wrote:

I didn't go to meetings for some number of years and when I
started going again I saw a *lot* of new faces, not all of
whom are young.  It seems to me that a static participant
base would clearly be more of an issue than age, per se.


Yes.

A static participant base encourages the privatization of working 
groups.  Instead of age, one could look at the number of meetings attended:


In 2005:

 1 6.6%
 2 - 518.2%
 6 - 10   16.8%
 > 10 58.4%

In 2010:

 1 8.8%
 2 - 520.0%
 6 - 10   16.3%
 > 10 55.0%

If over 50% of the attendees is static, there is an aging 
process.  Newcomers may be around 15%.  Someone mentioned that there 
is a feeling of exclusion instead of inclusion.


At 07:06 27-04-2012, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
younger members is going to die.


An institution that cannot recruit younger members is called a retirement home.

Some time back, a saying was posted to this mailing list:

  "Please be patient with the old folks"

Regards,
-sm

P.S. Phillip made a second comment.  There are some parallels with 
Operation Legacy.   

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Robert Raszuk]

Hi John,

Who proposes does !

Can't wait to see you in Vancouver ;)

Cheers,
R.


Maybe we would do better if we required attendees to dress as furries.  Their 
conventions seem to attract a younger crowd.

Sent from my iPhone

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[John E Drake]

Maybe we would do better if we required attendees to dress as furries.  Their 
conventions seem to attract a younger crowd.

Sent from my iPhone

> -Original Message-
> From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of
> Phillip Hallam-Baker
> Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 7:07 AM
> To: IETF Discussion Mailing List
> Subject: Is the IETF aging?
> 
> A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years ago
> I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later that
> still seems to be the case.
> 
> I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but not as many
> as I think there should be. By now at least a third of the organization
> should be younger than me, preferably half. That is certainly not what
> I see when I attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of women is also highly
> noticeable.
> 
> If this is the case it should worry us greatly. But first I think we
> need to determine if it is the case or not. I suggest an optional
> demographic survey of participants in the next IETF meeting to be
> repeated at regular intervals (no more than 5 years apart).
> 
> People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
> should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
> younger members is going to die.
> 
> --
> Website: http://hallambaker.com/

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Melinda Shore]

On 4/27/12 9:34 AM, Randy Bush wrote:

ietf, nanog, ripe, ... meetings all generally have 1/3
newcomers.  janog less so.


Sure, and organizational stability is good.  But what I'm saying is
that over a period of several years I've noticed the appearance of
new constituencies.  There was probably something similar in the
mid-'90s when the VoIP stuff started going crazy, although I was
part of that wave and would not have noticed.

Melinda

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Randy Bush]

> It seems to me that a static participant base would clearly
> be more of an issue than age, per se.  There's pretty clearly
> some churn, whether it's because of an influx of people from
> a new (to the IETF) geographic area, or because of an influx
> of people wanting to work on a new (to the IETF) problem
> area, and that's a very, very, very good thing.

ietf, nanog, ripe, ... meetings all generally have 1/3
newcomers.  janog less so.

randy

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Melinda Shore]

On 4/27/12 8:42 AM, Harald Alvestrand wrote:

The greybeards talk more. Especially in plenaries.


Ain't that the truth.

I didn't go to meetings for some number of years and when I
started going again I saw a *lot* of new faces, not all of
whom are young.  It seems to me that a static participant
base would clearly be more of an issue than age, per se.
There's pretty clearly some churn, whether it's because of
an influx of people from a new (to the IETF) geographic area,
or because  of an influx of people wanting to work on a new
(to the IETF) problem area, and that's a very, very, very
good thing.

Melinda

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Harald Alvestrand]

On 04/27/2012 04:41 PM, Yoav Nir wrote:

Hi Phil

After each meeting, Ray sends out a survey to all participants. The results 
from the latest one:

When were you born?

   Before 19502.9%
   1950 - 1960   16.6%
   1961 - 1970   33.7%
   1971 - 1980   32.8%
   After 198014.0%


The greybeards talk more. Especially in plenaries.

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Murray S. Kucherawy]

In addition to agreeing with Marc, I suspect it comes in waves.  I imagine 
there's a push of new stuff that comes in with new younger people, and then as 
the Internet digests that, those people follow it along and clean it up over 
the course of several years, meshing with the greybeards, and the median age 
increases.  Then with the next new wave, it swings downward again.

Seeing a graph of the median variation since IETF 1 might be interesting.

-MSK

From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Marc 
Blanchet
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 8:28 AM
To: Phillip Hallam-Baker
Cc: IETF Discussion Mailing List
Subject: Re: Is the IETF aging?

If I look around me, I see young people developing PHP, AJAX, ... almost all of 
this is not handled in IETF.  If I look at company valuations recently, there 
are at the same "level" in the stack: i.e. web apps. So I guess the plumbers 
are getting old, but the designers are younger and not here.

Marc.

Le 2012-04-27 à 11:08, Mary Barnes a écrit :


Personally, I think that may depend upon the Area in which you are active.  The 
RAI area from my perspective has a bunch of youngsters - mid-late 20s & 30s. 
And, I'm not as old as some of you all ;)

Personally, I think IETF has far more of an issue when it comes to cultural and 
gender diversity than it does with not having enough younger folks.  This is 
particularly visible in the leadership.

Regards,
Mary.
On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 9:06 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker 
mailto:hal...@gmail.com>> wrote:
A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years
ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later
that still seems to be the case.

I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but not as
many as I think there should be. By now at least a third of the
organization should be younger than me, preferably half. That is
certainly not what I see when I attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of
women is also highly noticeable.

If this is the case it should worry us greatly. But first I think we
need to determine if it is the case or not. I suggest an optional
demographic survey of participants in the next IETF meeting to be
repeated at regular intervals (no more than 5 years apart).

People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
younger members is going to die.

--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Worley, Dale R (Dale)]

> From: Phillip Hallam-Baker [hal...@gmail.com]
> 
> People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
> should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
> younger members is going to die.

Well, the Internet as we know it is 30 years old now, and not changing
nearly as fast as it was in its infancy.  IPv4 is being displaced only
because we ran out of addresses -- IPv6 should be good for a couple of
centuries.

It's true that institutions that cannot recruit the young die.  But
most institutions recruit the young when positions of power open up --
that is, when older members start dieing, or there is a huge shift in
the politics or underlying needs of the "customer" population.  The
federal government of the United States was dominated by the clique of
its revolutionary leaders for 40 years, and hasn't had much trouble
recruiting enough new blood to maintain its power (if not its
agility).  Similarly with two of the oldest and most powerful
gerontocracies in the world, the government of China and the Roman
Catholic Church.

Dale

RE: Is the IETF aging?

[Worley, Dale R (Dale)]

> From: Phillip Hallam-Baker [hal...@gmail.com]
> 
> Security could very well be an area that faces rather different
> challenges to other areas.

Of course -- In most areas, a creative, low-cost solution that works
90% of the time can be the basis of a new company, if not an entire
industry.  In security, a creative, low-cost solution that works 90%
of the time is a disaster.  So security is biased toward careful,
extremely experienced workers.

Dale

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Michael Richardson]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1


> "Phillip" == Phillip Hallam-Baker  writes:
Phillip> A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that
Phillip> 20 years ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants
Phillip> and 20 years later that still seems to be the case.

Phillip> I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but
Phillip> not as many as I think there should be. By now at least a
Phillip> third of the organization should be younger than me,
Phillip> preferably half. That is certainly not what I see when I
Phillip> attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of women is also highly
Phillip> noticeable.

I suspect your observation is correct, but the real question is: 
Is the IETF aging faster than 
   - the population at large
   - the IT population in general
   - the network engineering population in general

I also think that more and more "IETF" related work is now done at much
larger companies than 20 years ago.   The companies are more mainstream
in their culture, are not startups.  
They run by older people who ignore the contributions of younger people,
and in particular, do not feel a need to encourage their people to
contribute to IETF.   With money being less plentiful, and there being
less low hanging fruit at the IETF, it simply takes more of a business
case for a younger person, earlier in their career to argue for the time
and money expensse of their participation.

Finally, layer-5+ things are now way more cool.
So, given a choice of IETF or RubyConf, a lot of younger people pick
RubyConf...

- -- 
]   He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life!   |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON|net architect[
] m...@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
   Kyoto Plus: watch the video 
   then sign the petition. 


  
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Finger me for keys

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Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Marc Blanchet]

If I look around me, I see young people developing PHP, AJAX, … almost all of 
this is not handled in IETF.  If I look at company valuations recently, there 
are at the same "level" in the stack: i.e. web apps. So I guess the plumbers 
are getting old, but the designers are younger and not here.

Marc.

Le 2012-04-27 à 11:08, Mary Barnes a écrit :

> Personally, I think that may depend upon the Area in which you are active.  
> The RAI area from my perspective has a bunch of youngsters - mid-late 20s & 
> 30s. And, I'm not as old as some of you all ;)   
> 
> Personally, I think IETF has far more of an issue when it comes to cultural 
> and gender diversity than it does with not having enough younger folks.  This 
> is particularly visible in the leadership.  
> 
> Regards,
> Mary. 
> 
> On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 9:06 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker  
> wrote:
> A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years
> ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later
> that still seems to be the case.
> 
> I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but not as
> many as I think there should be. By now at least a third of the
> organization should be younger than me, preferably half. That is
> certainly not what I see when I attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of
> women is also highly noticeable.
> 
> If this is the case it should worry us greatly. But first I think we
> need to determine if it is the case or not. I suggest an optional
> demographic survey of participants in the next IETF meeting to be
> repeated at regular intervals (no more than 5 years apart).
> 
> People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
> should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
> younger members is going to die.
> 
> --
> Website: http://hallambaker.com/
> 

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Yoav Nir]

On Apr 27, 2012, at 6:05 PM, Carsten Bormann wrote:

> On Apr 27, 2012, at 16:41, Yoav Nir wrote:
> 
>> Before 19502.9%
>> 1950 - 1960   16.6%
>> 1961 - 1970   33.7%
>> 1971 - 1980   32.8%
>> After 198014.0%
> 
> Nice bell curve, יואב, but you can't pop that soap bubble of perception with 
> the bluntness of raw data :-)

Only 350 out of 1200 people answered the survey, so all caveats about bias 
apply. It's also possible that the 20-somethings tend to sit in the back more, 
and go to the microphone less. Maybe them young'uns are too busy clicking 
"Like" on pictures of LOL-cats :-)

> Maybe just the areas where PHB likes to work in are growing old? :-)

The old people in the security area do tend to look older than the old people 
in other areas. Maybe the bell curve for the security area is different.

> Many of the people doing the real work in CoRE are in their 20s, or have left 
> that age range just recently.  And no, they aren't all academics.  I think we 
> have a healthy age mix, with some pretty good gray-haired input as well.
> 
> I'm going to argue for an age column on the blue sheets so we get better data 
> :-)
> 
> Grüße, Carsten
> 
> PS.: Please, don't take any of this seriously.  Except for the CoRE age 
> statistics.
> Dave Cridland's observations also definitely don't apply to CoRE, except that 
> we do have the stunning range of experience that makes the IETF so valuable.
> 
> PPS.: Is the overall median really 42?

Wait a couple of years, and most participants won't get why "42" is funny.

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

Security could very well be an area that faces rather different
challenges to other areas.

It is pretty different to the other areas in that it is rather more
intimidating than most and there are many other forums where decisions
are made. The IETF doesn't even own X.509, that is ITU, it doesn't own
the practices criteria, that is CABForum. New security protocols tend
to be proposed in W3C or OASIS.

It also tends to be inward looking rather than outward. There is a
tendency for the IETF security area to spend its time stopping IETF
proposing insecure protocols rather than developing the security
infrastructure. Not adding to the store of broken-ness is good, but
that is not what the younger security engineers want to spend their
time doing. They want to make changes to the PKI infrastructure they
work on themselves.


On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Carsten Bormann  wrote:
> On Apr 27, 2012, at 16:41, Yoav Nir wrote:
>
>>  Before 1950    2.9%
>>  1950 - 1960   16.6%
>>  1961 - 1970   33.7%
>>  1971 - 1980   32.8%
>>  After 1980    14.0%
>
> Nice bell curve, יואב, but you can't pop that soap bubble of perception with 
> the bluntness of raw data :-)
>
> Maybe just the areas where PHB likes to work in are growing old? :-)
>
> Many of the people doing the real work in CoRE are in their 20s, or have left 
> that age range just recently.  And no, they aren't all academics.  I think we 
> have a healthy age mix, with some pretty good gray-haired input as well.
>
> I'm going to argue for an age column on the blue sheets so we get better data 
> :-)
>
> Grüße, Carsten
>
> PS.: Please, don't take any of this seriously.  Except for the CoRE age 
> statistics.
> Dave Cridland's observations also definitely don't apply to CoRE, except that 
> we do have the stunning range of experience that makes the IETF so valuable.
>
> PPS.: Is the overall median really 42?
>



-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Mary Barnes]

Personally, I think that may depend upon the Area in which you are active.
 The RAI area from my perspective has a bunch of youngsters - mid-late 20s
& 30s. And, I'm not as old as some of you all ;)

Personally, I think IETF has far more of an issue when it comes to cultural
and gender diversity than it does with not having enough younger folks.
 This is particularly visible in the leadership.

Regards,
Mary.

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 9:06 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years
> ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later
> that still seems to be the case.
>
> I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but not as
> many as I think there should be. By now at least a third of the
> organization should be younger than me, preferably half. That is
> certainly not what I see when I attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of
> women is also highly noticeable.
>
> If this is the case it should worry us greatly. But first I think we
> need to determine if it is the case or not. I suggest an optional
> demographic survey of participants in the next IETF meeting to be
> repeated at regular intervals (no more than 5 years apart).
>
> People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
> should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
> younger members is going to die.
>
> --
> Website: http://hallambaker.com/
>

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Carsten Bormann]

On Apr 27, 2012, at 16:41, Yoav Nir wrote:

>  Before 19502.9%
>  1950 - 1960   16.6%
>  1961 - 1970   33.7%
>  1971 - 1980   32.8%
>  After 198014.0%

Nice bell curve, יואב, but you can't pop that soap bubble of perception with 
the bluntness of raw data :-)

Maybe just the areas where PHB likes to work in are growing old? :-)

Many of the people doing the real work in CoRE are in their 20s, or have left 
that age range just recently.  And no, they aren't all academics.  I think we 
have a healthy age mix, with some pretty good gray-haired input as well.

I'm going to argue for an age column on the blue sheets so we get better data 
:-)

Grüße, Carsten

PS.: Please, don't take any of this seriously.  Except for the CoRE age 
statistics.
Dave Cridland's observations also definitely don't apply to CoRE, except that 
we do have the stunning range of experience that makes the IETF so valuable.

PPS.: Is the overall median really 42?

Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Dave Cridland]

On Fri Apr 27 15:06:36 2012, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years
ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later
that still seems to be the case.


I suspect that there's a marked skew toward the older participants in  
those who actually attend meetings, compared with those who simply  
participate on the mailing lists - but that said, I think the average  
age in both cases is on the up.


I'd posit that there's at least two primary factors in play:

a) Many of the "bright young things" are working in smaller  
organizations which are less likely to foot the (quite huge) bill for  
attending IETF weeks, as well as feeling the pinch when their staff  
are out of the office for nearly a month a year on IETF business. As  
a manager myself, I can barely justify sending one person, let alone  
all those involved in standardization work. (Yet I send four to XSF  
events...). I suspect rather strongly that larger organizations will  
tend toward sending more senior - in rank, and therefore age -  
engineers, and thus it's the smaller organizations that we need to  
bring on board.


It seems possible that if we designated one of the three yearly  
meetings as the "main" meeting, we might focus such smaller  
organizations' attendance.


b) Also, many are working on "web" things, and as such both the  
pressure to standardize is less, and most of all, the pressure to  
standardize *here* is less. I'd note that the XSF does reasonably  
well in recruiting people of all ages to its cause - there, I'm a  
disturbingly ancient greybeard, whereas in IETF terms I'm a young  
whippersnapper.


I think that the XSF does better here because it's maintained a  
closer relationship with implementors and deployers of its protocols.  
In particular, people often do kick off work within the XSF, rather  
than creating the work elsewhere and bringing it to the XSF in whole  
cloth for some mystic process called standardization. People  
regularly ask on its mailing lists (and chatrooms) about protocols -  
both extant ones and ideas for new ones.


I think in general, the way to ensure the IETF is at the centre of  
internet developments is to ensure it is a developer's organization,  
as well as an SDO, and unfortunately it's lost this connection - if  
you want to get some advice for that mail client you're writing, the  
IETF probably wouldn't help if you asked, and certainly wouldn't  
spring to mind as the place to ask.


There's a purist kind of atmosphere at the IETF - we don't do  
interop, we don't sully our hands with development - so we're in  
danger of reducing the benefit we have to developers and the  
organizations they work for. Re-engaging with those communities (and  
in some cases, reinventing them) would, I think, do wonders for  
attendance and interest - and benefit our standards as well, by  
increasing the focus on applied engineering.


That all said, I'd note that whilst the XSF solidly trounces the IETF  
in terms of the numbers of people below 40, it sorely lacks the  
significant benefits of the rest of the age-range - the IETF's  
combined experience is vast, and the ability to tap into that  
expertise is a real plus point.


Dave.
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Re: Is the IETF aging?

[Yoav Nir]

Hi Phil

After each meeting, Ray sends out a survey to all participants. The results 
from the latest one:

When were you born?

  Before 19502.9%
  1950 - 1960   16.6%
  1961 - 1970   33.7%
  1971 - 1980   32.8%
  After 198014.0%

I think an earlier survey had the 1971-1980 crowd inch past the 1961-1970 one, 
but it does seem like the 30-50 age groups dominate. I don't believe you really 
are among the youngest, and neither am I (I'm 40). There are quite a few WG 
chairs, and some area directors who are younger than either of us.

20 years ago, was the balance of industry vs government and academia the same 
as today?  I am guessing that it was not, and that only a small minority came 
from industry. I am also guessing that doctoral students and post-docs are more 
eager than tenured professors to publish internet drafts, so the average age of 
an academic at the IETF is low. OTOH in industry you get to participate in 
things like the IETF only after you've "been around for a while". How many of 
the participants from Cisco carry the "distinguished engineer" title? A lot. I 
think that explains why the average age has moved up. Are things any different 
in ITU or even W3C?

Yoav 


On Apr 27, 2012, at 5:06 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> A question arose on the RFC-interest list, I observed that 20 years
> ago I was one of the youngest IETF participants and 20 years later
> that still seems to be the case.
> 
> I see some grad students and some postdocs in their 20s but not as
> many as I think there should be. By now at least a third of the
> organization should be younger than me, preferably half. That is
> certainly not what I see when I attend IETFs. And yes, the lack of
> women is also highly noticeable.
> 
> If this is the case it should worry us greatly. But first I think we
> need to determine if it is the case or not. I suggest an optional
> demographic survey of participants in the next IETF meeting to be
> repeated at regular intervals (no more than 5 years apart).
> 
> People can argue about process, RFC formats and governance but it
> should be beyond argument that any institution that cannot recruit
> younger members is going to die.
> 
> -- 
> Website: http://hallambaker.com/
> 
> Scanned by Check Point Total Security Gateway.