The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is charged with developing and promoting Internet standards. It is an open, all-volunteer organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements.
It is organized into a large number of working groups, each dealing with a specific topic; each working group has an appointed chair (or sometimes several co-chairs). The working groups are organized into areas by subject matter; each area is overseen by an area director, or AD (sometimes an area can have co-AD's); the AD's appoint WG chairs. The area directors, together with the IETF Chair, form the Internet Engineering Steering Group, or IESG, who are responsible for the overall operation of the IETF.
The IETF is overseen by the Internet Architecture Board, or IAB, which is in turn responsible to the Internet Society, ISOC.
The current chairman of the IETF is Harald Tveit Alvestrand.
List of IETF chairs:
- Harald Tveit Alvestrand (2001-present)
- Fred Baker (1996-2001)
- Paul Mockapetris (1994-1995)
- Phill Gross (1986-1993)
--- External Links:
- The official IETF site:
- Details on how IETF is organized:
- Harald Alvestrands IETF activities (by Alvestrand):
