Internet Engineering Task Force
 | |
| Founded: | 1986 |
| Ownership: | ISOC |
| Website: | IETF.org |
| Key People | |
| Russ Housley, Chair | |
IETF is the acronym for the Internet Engineering Task Force, which 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.[1] It is a part of ISOC.[2]
Overview
In order to develop Internet standards, the IETF cooperates with other communities and institutions like ISO/IEC and W3C for standards related to the Internet protocol(IP) suite and TCP/IP. There is no imposed membership or membership requirements because IETF is an open organization. All participants work voluntarily even if some are sponsored.
IETF's mission is to make the Internet work better by developing high quality, relevant technical documents that stimulate and influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.[3]
The IETF is part of Internet Society (ISOC) which in its turn is a non-profit organization created in 1992 to ensure leadership in Internet-related standards, education, and policy. The main objective of ISOC is to ensure an open development, evolution and use of Internet in the benefit of people all over the world.[4]
IETF History
After its foundation, the first IETF meeting took place in January 16 year 1986 when 21 US researchers participated. Since 1991 there were only 3 meetings organized on a yearly basis and non-governmental entities were invited to participate as well. This is how IETF became an open international community.
During the 1990's IETF changed its institutional from a US government form to an independent and international activity being subordinated to the Internet Society (ISOC).
IETF Working Groups
The work of IETF is based on working groups which are being organized based on the area/topic such as: management, security,transport, etc. Even if the IETF organized three meetings on a yearly basis, the working groups maintain communication by means of mailing lists. All members of the working groups must agree and accept the IETF rules of process.
However, when the number of volunteers is small there are difficulties and the results can be slowed down due to lack of progress. Similarly, when the number of volunteers is too large there are also problems because a consensus is achieved harder. There are also cases when volunteers lack experience and basic knowledge in that specific area and all these factors influence progress.
Moreover, each working group is being managed and coordination by an Area Director (AD) who are members of IESG (Internet Engineering Steering Group). In the same time, for each working group there is appointed a chairperson or in some cases co-chairs. The AD's are responsible with appointing the chairpersons for each working groups. In this way the ADs and the chairperson form the IESG(Internet Engineering Steering Group) and are responsible for the whole IETF work.
The submission made by IETF is considered as IETF Contribution. In this way, all IETF Contributions must comply with provisions of RFC 5378 and RFC 4879.[5]