At 01:13 PM 5/24/99 -0700, Karl Auerbach wrote:
>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.
To compare an entertainment company's rendition of idealized life in a
bygone era, to the work of the IETF, suggests a pretty serious
misunderstanding of the goals and accomplishments of one group or the
other, if not both.
At the least, the IETF does not have entertainment as a primary goal. The
fact that it occasionally doe provides entertainment should not confuse one
into thinking it is a goal.
It DOES have a goal of developing global specifications that are used, and
it achieves that goal, far better than any other group. It has many years
of success in this arena, and it has achieved success when other,
supposedly related groups, have not.
That's reality, Karl.
>The IETF has had many major debates, red faces, sweat pouring out, people
>shouting, people screaming. 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 fortuitous happenstance that happened among a
You are imparting to my use of the term an interpretation which I neither
stated nor meant. Having had a rather serious involvement in the
formalities of that style -- as an Area Director for standards and as an
author of roughly half the text for the original specification of that
process, as well as writing a book chapter on it and an ACM article -- I'm
not inclined to idealize it. It doesn't help anything for you to suggest
otherwise.
By the same token, it does not help to suggest that the crap that has been
going on for the last couple of years has any relationship to a
constructive process of the type that occurs in the IETF.
>number of relatively same-minded people, all of whom were fairly affluent
>and with similar cultural backgrounds, to discuss somewhat objective,
>technical material.
Karl, evidently you missed the purely political component to the IETF
debates involving CMIP and, later, CLNP, that had nothing ad all to do with
objective technical materials, but had everything to do with attempting to
impose ISO dominance over IETF processes.
>But we're now in the world of "Internet governance".
No more than we've been for technical standards. The effort to make it
SEEM more has been a very successful marketing campaign to get and keep
people excited, without their really attending to meaningful issues.
It also has been a good way to ensure that things become, and are kept,
quite complicated. It's possible to have simple processes for doing
operational administration. It's NOT possible for global "governance".
So, sure enough, the latter is what is being forced, since it enables most
of the vocal participants to treat this and themselves as more
important. Administration is boring; governance is not.
>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 being MADE that by those who have worked so hard to escalate the
scope. It is NOT, however, what is necessary, any more than IANA has been
governance. Efforts to treat it as more, DO represent trips into
Disneyland, albeit a version of the theme park from a more twisted mind
than Walt's.
>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.
Come on, Karl. For folks like you and me and many others, EVERYTHING
brings debate. The fact of debate means nothing.
The fact that the debates have mostly served to cause delay and increase
complexity of the resulting "solution" DO mean something.
>I reject the notion that the "Internet style" is something that is either
>appropriate or useful in these discussions.
As I recall, you also rejected the validity of the IETF process, citing
many faults with its operations, suggesting that there is an idealized, but
un-demonstrated process that you have in mind as being necessary.
And that's exactly the problem. We had an excellent, working model for a
process and, instead, are trying to invent an untested, complicated
structure and process instead.
Now, Karl, you have enough experience with large-scale systems and with
standards processes to know what the outcome of such a bloated effort and
design will be.
>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.
You will. But by then it will be too late.
And, of course, you won't appreciate your own role in creating that harm.
d/
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