Stef, Excellent stake in the ground. I would just emphasize one thing regarding consensus that I believe you also pointed out. Consensus is important with regard to universal interconnection but is not necessary on all issues. If we try to get even a rough consensus on some issues, we will run into a conflict with value #2, diversity. I sincerely believe with you that consensus on common values is the right place to start because our values should be the basis of all our consensus building exercises. Chuck -----Original Message----- From: Einar Stefferud [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 04, 1999 1:48 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: BWG; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Some ideas about COMMON VALUES -- Re: Proposed DNSO bylaws At last we are having a serious discussion on the critical issues. Over New Years, up in the mountains of southern California, I came across a very interesting book (just purchased by a friend) that reports on an effort to find a global set of common "VALUES" upon which it might be possible for all people, cultures and religions to agree, and which then in turn can support related goals, strategic plans for goal achievement, tactical operations for working toward achievement of selected goals, and also yield a broad rough consensus in terms of ethical and moral VALUES. What I see as missing in our DNSO efforts so far, is this same kind of effort to find our common DNS system VALUES. Of course, I did not think of actually seeking out such VALUES until I read the book;-)... But, the author appears to have succeeded, so why don't we try too. This is in some sense the meta meta problem, of finding the higher level roots of our desired solution, based on agreed upon common VALUES, before setting goals, before choosing strategic plans, and before choosing operational tactics for execution to achieve the chosen goals. So, in parallel with this new ORSC sponsored bylaw drafting effort, I would like to explore our VALUES and GOALS which must stand above and lend guidance to our entire DNS coordination effort. Let me start with a few of what I think are our common VALUES, and ask for some discussion of them, and other common VALUES to be identified by other participants. What I have here is by no means complete nor the end of this story. It is only a beginning, intended to strike a chord and lead to a path for progress. 1. FAIRNESS: We all agree that we all (each and everyone one of us) want to be treated FAIRLY, whatever that means. I believe we also want to treat others fairly! Fear of UNFAIRNESS appears to me to be the singularly most critical driver in most of our various contentious arguments. This is one of our worst nightmares. Stated in more positive terms, this VALUE is what we mean when we say "Treat others as you would like them to treat you!" In internet protocol terms, this is known as "Be conservative in what you send, and liberal in what you accept"! Of course, in a real world, we know that we cannot expect to always be so treated, so we learn to maintain our guard against unfair treatment, or against liberal sending in the case of Internet protocol machines. Maintaining our guard is a very important aspect of things. 2. DIVERSITY: We all seem to want somewhat different results, in terms of profit vs non-profit, one business model vs another, or one model for all vs open choice of models, etc... But, I believe we all agree that the Internet is designed to handle DIVERSITY of applications over a common interconnection substrate, and I believe that DIVERSITY is something that we agree is both inevitable and desirable in the Global Internet. What is the VALUE of global HOMOGENEITY in place of DIVERSITY? Enforced HOMOGENEITY is also one of our major nightmares, especially if "The Other Guys" get to set the rules! So we redouble our guard! 3. CONSENSUS: We all agree that we need broad Rough CONSENSUS, else whatever global DNS coordinating structure is put in place will suffer an endless series of attacks and workarounds until it is operationally defeated in the operational Internet. This is the notion that collectively we really want only ONE INTERNET, but if the one we are allowed to have is not adequate, we will work from the edges to make it into what we want it to be. If any of us really want to be disconnected from The Net, we can very easily achieve this without collective action. But, it requires collective cooperative action to become and stay interconnected. It is the VALUE of Universal Interconnection that we seek! The desire in all of us to be interconnected is the glue that holds he Internet together. Thus, the entire Internet is VALUE based, and we must be faithful to the VALUE the common VALUE of being interconnected. 4. STABILITY: We all agree that whatever is done, it must deliver STABILITY of operations in terms of services delivered to the users of the Internet. But, I think that maybe this is a GOAL, and not a VALUE, even though having it adds value. 5. COHERENCE: We all agree that the DNS must be coherent at all levels, which is to say, it must not contain name-to-address conflicts such that the same name resolves differently in different servers, except during brief times when specific zone changes are being propagated. But, again, this looks more like a GOAL than a VALUE. 6. OPENNESS: I think we all agree that OPEN is better than CLOSED, though we may have different notions of what OPEN means in operation. Some of us believe that it is critical for our creative processes to be open, while other seems to believe that it is sufficient to display the results of closed deliberations for all to see, but without any means for effecting changes. So, many of us object strongly when the creative process is not OPEN, just because of the VALUE we give to OPENNESS. So, I see this as a VALUE, and not a GOAL. Your mileage may vary. 7. TRUST: We all understand the need to TRUST each other, and to TRUST the coordinating structures that we collectively put in place. Without TRUST in our collective creations, they have very little VALUE. TRUST might be a meta VALUE, in that we need to be able to TRUST the FAIRNESS of everything we collectively create. As I stated above, I am certain that my little list is nothing more than an initial stake in the ground to suggest that the VALUE dimension is critical for us all to understand, and thus it might be critically important for us to collectively explore what our common VALUES are, so we can all keep them in mind as we proceed to develop goals and plans and tactics, all of which must be reflected in our bylaws, and in the institutions created by our bylaws. It seems obvious to me now that I have seen the book, that getting clear on our common VALUES will help us to later find ways to find consensus agreements on, or at least mutual acceptance of, goals, strategies and tactics. Without a relatively clear understanding of our common VALUES, I do not see how we might ever agree on any set of goals, whether completely aligned or just nicely compatible. The question is, if we do not have a sense of our common VALUES, how will we know when we are aligned on our VALUES. So, as I see it, hopefully we might be able to find CONSENSUS on common VALUES, and then in keeping with our agreed upon VALUES, adopt compatible, though not necessarily identical sets of goals, with corresponding strategic plans and tactical operations to support our desired DIVERSITY without giving up FAIRNESS while achieving our separate and collective GOALS. And, with our VALUES understood, we can easily take notice when our goals, strategies or tactics violate our common VALUES. And, here is a last thought. Given some set of common values, such as above, then within that context, we can set goals for such things as COHERENCE, STABILITY, SECURITY, RELIABILITY, FAIRNESS, TRUSTWORTHYNESS, ETC, and these can be expressed operationally as objective criteria for acceptance of new TLDs for admission into the COMMOM ROOT, which must be FAIRLY administered through cooperative coordination of all the TLD Registry Operators. The TLD registries are the source of all data to be recorded in the COMMON ROOT ZONE, and thus shared by all users of the Internet, who are primarily interested in always being able to connect with whomever they wish. Just some food for thought. The book I found over the New Year's weekend was written by: Kidder Rushworth, published in 1994, and titled "Shared Values for a Troubled World: Conversations with Men and Women of Conscience" I recommend it highly. It gets at the core of our problems of finding and using our globally shared core VALUES to build consensus in a shrinking world which is suffering from "technobulge". It is available from AMAZON;-)... I am buying a copy for myself;-)... Cheers...\Stef PS: I wonder if we can find some way to get Kidder Rushworth to become involved in our efforts to sort out the DNS MESS. I think his ideas and his methodology would be extremely valuable to us and to the future of the Internet. I also suspect that the Internet would give him a real world experience in applying his work...\s >From your message Sun, 03 Jan 1999 19:55:50 -0500: } }Dan, } }>Grandfathering all existing TLDs in the root (any proposal that leads }>to instability will just run up against too many brick walls) }>Open Business Model (any proposal that mandates not-for-profit or }>for-profit will run into too many brick walls) }>Registrar-registry breakout mandatory except for "true" ccTLDs (if we }>don't do this, there will be too many anti-trust considerations down }>the line. There is no technical reason, just doing our bit to stay }>out of court) }>A more defined class for prospective registries like IOD, Iperdome, }>CORE, etc. (anything else will just prolong the DNS wars) } }You have it exactly right, except I'm not convinced the }registrar-registry thing is required to pass antitrust }muster. The purpose of this DNSO and ICANN are to }facilitate cooperation. That can't be underscored enough. }The endgame here is "herding cats," not dictating people's }druthers. } } }--tony __________________________________________________ To receive the digest version instead, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNSUBSCRIBE, forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Problems/suggestions regarding this list? Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___END____________________________________________
