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Re: NAT support and laws for the lawless

Tony Hain wrote:

Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
... 

The title of this thread implies that people believe that the
IETF sets laws
and has a right of veto over net use. The IETF is no
difference in principle
to any other open source type project, people can and do fork
the code tree.


I didn't even read the subject until you pointed it out, but the point
is not about what authority the IETF has over use of its writings. The
point is that the IETF is in control of the focus of the WGs and how
much time they spend trying to define duplicate solutions.


Since I created the title, perhaps I should clarify.

By 'law', I meant 'standard', as in 'protocol standard'.

There are a set of such standards, a subset of the RFCs which have "STD" numbers, including 1122, 1123, 1812, etc. A combination of the IETF/IAB/IESG do determine what RFCs become STDs.

The IETF does set laws, in the above sense. There is no authority about 'veto' over net use, but they have, as Tony points out, authority over whether to pass mutually conflicting 'laws' or create WGs to spend time doing so.

Joe