Jay,
You wrote:
> It started with two processes to find a
> community consensus way to self-govern the
> Internet. The IFWP featured open meetings
> and open discussions, with the result being
> a set of compromise and consensus principles
> that were reflected in multiple documents,
> including some draft by-laws.
>
> The IANA process featured a small committee
> (ITAG) working in secret with their attorney
> (Joe Sims), and apparently with input from
> many foreign governments and multinational
> corporations.
>
> The first process was ignored, and the
> second process was blessed with a slate
> of Board members who appeared of a virgin
> birth.
>
These few paragraphs from your text stroke me particularly.
In fact, you seem to say that, in the end, "input from many foreign
governments and multinational corporations" had more weight than "community
consensus", being the latter what was achieved in the IFWP process.
How can this be a surprise to you (or to anybody else)?
Let's be clear. The IFWP process was very important, bringing a lot of
elements of discussion on the table. Some points were very good, indeed, but
there's no way the consensus reached by few hundreds (500?) people can be
imposed on the whole world, overriding governments and corporations.
In fact, somebody remembers the speech from Roger Cochetti back in Reston
(gee, already a year ago...) about the fact that whatever direction the IFWP
process would have taken, no proposed solution for the Internet would have
been applied unless consented by the governments and the corporations? It
seems a good prophecy.
I don't think that time are ready for direct democracy in the Net, which
does not mean that we should not try, but it surely means that the good old
method of taking the good elements to propose, building a case for them, and
trying to convince the "decision makers", like "governments and
corporations", may work better.
Moreover, considering the IFWP results as the Gospel, to be applied upon
everybody (as some contributions to this list seem to imply), seems to me to
be likely to produce the opposite effect.
Regards
Roberto
