A Novice’s Guide to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

One of the "founding beliefs" is embodied in an early quote about the IETF from David Clark: "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code". Another early quote that has become a commonly-held belief in the IETF comes from Jon Postel: "Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you accept".

http://www.ietf.org/tao.html#rfc.section.3