Ronda Hauben <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The Whole IFWP process was flawed as it didn't start from the
> recognition of the Internet as a communications medium, instead it
> was intent on turning the whole Internet over to those smaller set
> of interests who were intent on changing the Internet to make it an
> ecommercenet.
> But with all the efforts to create so called ecommercenets in the
> past, they couldn't accomplish what they tried, and instead the
> Internet grew and developed as a public communications medium.
> Anyone who wants to create some ecommerce network should do
> it separate from trying to steal the Internet from those
> who have contributed to its growth and development over
> more than 30 years.
I've been giving what you have written some thought and I came to the
conclusion that the "ecommercenet" you claim people with commercial
interests should create exists. It just so happens that as a result
of the NSFnet agreements drafted and signed in 1992 that the
"ecommercenet" was allowed to communicate with NSFnet (and other
networks running TCP/IP) according to a set of agreed-upon policies.
A lot of this is documented online; I have found much of it at
www.merit.edu, and Gordon Cook has reported on much of it as well.
(I'm sure GC will correct me if I have erred in anything I've
written.)
The "ecommercenet" has the government granted authority to engage in
commerce. Educational and other noncommercial networks have the
authority to refuse to communicate with the "ecommercenet" if they
feel it is violating the agreed-upon policies. (IMO, you ought to
contact some sysadmins and net admins at educational, military,
etc. sites and ask them what their policies are.) You could make the
argument that these agreements should have required the "ecommercenet"
and the rest of the Internet to use disjoint name and address spaces.
However, this would have been very infeasible. Much of the
"ecommercenet" had already been assigned name and address space
(e.g. IBM, AT&T) and it would have been a pain to rename/renumber it.
There was also quite a lot of communication between the "ecommercenet"
and the rest of the Internet anyway, which would have been disrupted
if name and address changes were required. As these networks were
already running TCP/IP, and a major goal of the NII was to provide a
means for all sectors (government, educational, military, commercial,
etc) to share information, it made sense to use the existing protocols
and retain the old addresses and names where feasible.
Even if the "ecommercenet" had used a disjoint name and address space,
this debate would have eventually ensued. Eventually there would have
been disputes over trademarked names, differing name registration
policies outside of the US, a desire to introduce competition into the
registry and registrar business, IP routing table exhaustion, etc.
--gregbo
