Template:Article of the Week 2016/14

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open, international community made-up of operators, designers and researchers; their main concern is the development of the Internet's architecture as well as the development of Internet standards.In order to develop Internet standards, the IETF cooperates with other communities and institutions like ISO/IEC and W3C for standards related to Internet protocol and TCP/IP. There are no membership requirements since IETF is an open organization. All participants work voluntarily even if some are sponsored. IETF's mission is to further enhance the Internet by developing high quality, relevant technical documents that stimulate and influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.

The first IETF meeting took place on January 16th, 1986; 21 US researchers participated. Since 1991 IETF has held 3 meetings per year; and eventually non-governmental entities were invited to participate. During the 1990's the IETF detached itself from the US government to form an independent and international forum; it eventually defined itself as a division of ISOC.

IETF 95 is being held in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 3-8 April 2016.