Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a non-profit organization was founded in 1986 that develops and maintains standards for the Internet. There is no membership for IETF. Anyone can volunteer and contribute to IETF.
IETF Mission
“The overall goal of the IETF is to make the Internet work better.”
“Its mission is to produce high quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet in such a way as to make the Internet work better. These documents include protocol standards, best current practices, and informational documents of various kinds.”
Principles of IETF
Open process – Any person can join and contribute. The process is open.
Technical competence – Technical quality is given utmost importance.
Volunteer Core – The core of IETF are their volunteers
Rough consensus and running code – Standards are based on the combined engineering judgement of the volunteers and real time experience in implementing and deploying the standard specifications.
Protocol ownership – IETF takes the complete ownership of it’s responsibilities.