Internet Engineering Task Force

The Internet Engineering Task Force (usually referred to with the acronym, IETF) is the main engineering body for the Internet. It develops standards using feedback from experimental early implementations; neither individuals nor organizations have a vote, rather the ethos is to try and find the 'right thing'. This has led to the IETF's informal motto: 'we believe in consensus and running code'.

The current structure has evolved over time as the IETF grew; originally it was a single smallish group, then it became large enough to need the creation of Working Groups (WGs) which were topic-specific, then as the number of WGs grew, they wer organized in Areas, with an Area Director to oversee all the WGs in a particular area.

It produces standards documents which go through a sequence; Draft Standard to start, then Proposed Standard, then Full Standard.