“…As Bradner and other IETF members are quick to point
out, the current excitement over open source development owes much
to the early successes of the IETF open standards model.“
“The IETF supported the concept of open source long before the
open source movement was formed,” he writes. “There is an intrinsic
partnership between open standards processes, open documentation
and open sources.”
“Unlike the open software development model, however, the IETF
standards process tends to whittle down technologies rather than
build them up. Bradner credits the organization’s “rough consensus
and running code” philosophy. Because most standards disputes come
down to a single company or individual holding out for a favorite
feature, the ultimate IETF remedy is to discard features until
reviewers finally agree.”