(2024-11-21) Exploring the Remarkable Regenerative Patterns and Practices of the IETF

Exploring the Remarkable Regenerative Patterns and Practices of the IETF, by Kaliya “Identity Woman” Young and Day Davis Waterbury.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is not well-known outside of technical communities. Its impact on the everyday lives of billions of people is profound yet paradoxically almost invisible. Attention and resources rightfully flow towards unsolved problems and contentious issues and away from whatever is functioning smoothly. We owe a debt of gratitude not only to the initial inventors of the protocols that make the Internet possible but also to their profound commitment to preserving the freedom and openness of the incredible resources they help create. This work reports on research focused on the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF) innovative processes for creating protocols for all – descriptions of how to move data in networks of computers – as well as protocols for its own governance. The IETF uses a sophisticated tool, the DataTracker, which serves as a ‘group brain’ that stores all the information at all levels of the organization. The IETF also has a culture that nurtures deep listening and deliberative discernment. It has processes to access and channel group wisdom into action. We argue the IETF is regenerative and leverages its collective intelligence. Our research can offer insights to organizations and communities seeking to create better technology for the good of humanity.

The first part of our research explores the IETF as a living system based on our participation and observations mapped to the patterns from three different pattern languages. In this section we explore how Identity, Culture, Process, Governance, Tooling, and Knowledge all shape a deeper IETF Purpose.

The second part of the report thoroughly explores how the IETF is regenerative. We use the patterns from the pattern languages as lenses to understand how the organization works. We detail how these patterns appear within the IETF as it operates.

Pattern Languages, particularly those developed by communities that work together to discern the patterns present when things feel alive, are a lens through which to look at and make sense of the world. This novel research approach was fruitful because it gave us language to discuss what we saw happening with the practices and processes the IETF community/organization was enacting.

We believe there are so many Wise Democracy patterns in the organization overall, and so many Group Works patterns present within the meetings, because the community that built the IETF and the organelles within it did so in an iterative manner over time. They paid close attention to what worked and what didn’t. Or, to look at it another way, they moved towards processes and practices that felt alive (or regenerative) and away from processes that felt less alive (or degenerative). We chose to include a third pattern language (Social Permaculture) because critical elements present in the IETF are explained by those patterns, particularly, Joyful Communal Labor (the IETF is really just a big work party), Consensual Hierarchy (they built the hierarchy they have, define how it works and can change it), and Zones of Autonomy (they operate outside of many of the default world’s patterns and assumptions, eschewing both corporate and government control). Each of these was significant in explaining what we saw within the IETF, so each has their own sub-section below.