> They do not have any experience in the Internet's style of decision making
> and they do not suffer from the delays they are causing.
The "Internet's style of decision making", assuming that means the warm
image of love, peace, and good vibes as exemplified by the IETF ...
That style is no more reality than Disneyland's "Main Street" reflects
real life in late 19th century America.
Just as the 19th century America was a place of near revolution by
industrial workers, disease, poverty, and political machines, that vague
thing called "Internet style" is also full of things that we like to pass
over or to forget.
The IETF has had many major debates, red faces, sweat pouring out, people
shouting, people screeming. I know, I was there doing some of the
shouting.
In other words it was the normal sort of stuff that happens when people
disagree.
The "Internet style" is really nothing more than a fanciful recollection
of the best parts of a fortuitious happenstance that happened among a
number of relatively same-minded people, all of whom were fairly affluent
and with similar cultural backgrounds, to discuss somewhat objective,
technical material.
But we're now in the world of "Internet governance".
Yes, there are those who adhere to the euphemism that we are just doing
"technical coordination", but they are just engaging in self-deception.
ICANN *is* Internet Governance.
It is not "technical coordination" to adopt policies regarding the
interaction of trademarks and domain names. It is governance, pure and
simple.
And governance brings debate.
And this debate is not among a small group of like-minded techies about
whether some protocol formulation is better than another as measured by
some objective criteria.
I reject the notion that the "Internet style" is something that is either
appropriate or useful in these discussions.
As for the delay that these discussions are causing -- well, yes, I am
still paying $35/year to NSI for my domain registrations. But other than
that, I don't see much harm in discussion.
I see much more harm arising from an abrupt, almost panic-driven adoption
of highly biased regulatory structures such as being proposed by WIPO.
--karl--
