[kitteh]

The IETF is a pita when it comes to the routing area. Operators aren't well represented there and it's vendors running the show (this is why Randy Bush calls it the IVTF, and he's right). I am happy to see folks like Job make some progress there (and a few others), but I lost taste for the pedantry when I saw real operators asking for decent BGP changes get shot down.

[robjs]

Job is definitely managing to make some great progress, which is impressive. There aren't a huge number of folks that have the time and effort that is required to push these things through.

I've worked for an operator all the time that I've been in the IETF, and its definitely pedantry, not-invented-here, and lack of understanding of real issues that prevents us making significant progress. I personally have had more than one go at trying to improve IETF<->operator communication, and made little to no progress.

A much more successful model has been writing code, co-developing it with other operators and vendors if possible, and then working directly with vendors to push their implementations. This model self-selects on solutions that are actually used (because there's non-standards-focused engineers involved), and rather than worrying about potential edge cases, get to handle the problems that occur in practice. This is a bit harder to do with changes that require global scope -- but all technologies we develop now need to coexist with legacy, so I'm not clear that it's not the best model as we go forward.

[eqvinox]

> A much more successful model has been writing code, co-developing it with other operators and vendors if possible, [...]

Indeed. This provides the barrier the IETF lacks, and does so in a pretty nice way. It may not work all the time, but even if it helps in 90% of cases that's a great improvement.

[throw0101a]

> Operators aren't well represented there

Is there anything stopping operators from showing up? The IETF mailing lists are no more exclusive than (say) the NANOG ones I would think.

[robjs]

There's no reason operators can't show-up, and a bunch of us do - however, it requires significantly more time investment than posting to NANOG. In some of my professional roles this has been easy to get, in others (especially smaller shops) it's much harder to justify the benefit of spending the time there.

[kitteh]

The NANOG community is much better to operate in. You are dealing with your peers (ha) and what you say generally resonates with the audience better. At IETF, you have people who collect paychecks from companies who technically run networks, but have no responsibility with the operation of it.

[throw0101a]

Well, which is why it may be useful to get some of the NANOG (or international equivalent) folks involved in the IETF (and vice versa?): having end-user buy-in is important for any technology or service.