Internet Engineering Task Force

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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.