Why I quit writing Internet standards

[Commentary] My seven years on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), from 2003 to 2010, definitely taught me interesting things, including how to get a group of people to deliver when you had no control over their jobs.

As co-chair of the Network-based Mobility Management (NETLMM) working group, I led one of the rather contentious working groups at the IETF. Overall, my experience with IETF has positively contributed to my skills in leadership, consensus building, design thoroughness and seeing the big picture.

So, why did I actually stop contributing to standards definitions? The primary reason is the fact that while the pace at which standards are written hasn’t changed in many years, the pace at which the real world adopts software has become orders of magnitude faster.

[Narayanan is an engineer at Google]