Subject: (ngtrans) Sabbatical

From: Steve Deering <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 15:09:22 -0700

[my apologies for any duplicates]

Dear Colleagues/Friends,

This note is to let you know that, starting next week, I am taking an
extended leave of absence from Cisco and from the IETF.   After eighteen
very rewarding years of participation in the IETF, the last eleven of
which have been spent helping to bring the new version of IP to the
Internet, it seems like a good time to take a nice, long break from the
world of email, airplanes, and protocol politics.  I plan to spend at
least a year pursuing other personal interests that have absolutely
nothing to do with the Internet (mostly involving hiking boots and
a camera).  Beyond that, I have no specific plans at the moment, but
my employer has generously granted me a leave of absence for now, so
that if I find the PowerPoint withdrawal unbearable, they'll let me
come back.

I am gratified at how far we have come with IPv6.  We have a set of
specifications that have been widely implemented and well tested,
and they continue to be refined and extended with the enthusiastic
participation of many volunteers.  There are high-quality
implementations of the protocol available for almost all routers and
host operating systems (including, at last, one for us discerning
Macintosh users!).  It is widely deployed in many research
and education networks, and the first commercial IPv6 networks are
up and running.  And the address allocation procedures and policies
are in place to ensure that all those new addresses we made can
actually be used as intended!  I am proud to have learned from,
collaborated with, and befriended the many people who have participated
-- and who will continue to participate, I hope -- in this grand project
to ensure that all the benefits of the Internet become available to
everyone -- not just the lucky ones who got the IPv4 addresses!  

There is still lots of work to be done, of course, but most of that is
in the areas of applications, "middleware", network management, and
cool new devices, which is to say, not my layer! :-)  The remaining
internet-layer work of the IPv6 Working Group will continue under the
respected and experienced leadership of Bob Hinden and Margaret Wasserman.

I am honored to have served on the IAB and to have had the privilege of
getting to know and learn from the many smart and selfless IETFers who
have served on that body.  I am also grateful to the IAB for letting me
escape without quite finishing out my term!

Some bureaucratic details:  My resignation from the IPv6 WG co-chair
position and the IAB is effective at the end of next week, giving me
time to try to clean up a few loose ends.  After that, I will be
unsubscribing from most mailing lists (ahhhh).  Personal email to
[email-masked] should still reach me, sometimes.

Steve