Re: [ifwp] Rutkowsky cult (was: clever girls)

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Werner and all,

Werner Staub wrote:

> Tony,
>
> Whether you intended to talk about a Postel/ISOC cult in public
> or in private, it reminded me of the first case of personality
> cult I saw in the context of ISOC. Is was about yourself, and
> by yourself.
>
> In early 1995, you were the executive director of the ISOC.
> During the "Internet Days" organised by the ITU, you were
> invited to speak in that capacity, and I expected you to
> speak about the Internet and ISOC. Instead, you spoke about
> the Internet and yourself. You would dwell on things like
> your visit to a NASA museum where the devices you had invented
> were exhibited, etc.
>
> I was so surprised that I checked the ISOC web site. At that
> time, the ISOC site looked as if it was dedicated to telling
> the entire world how great _you_ were. Your curriculum vitae
> was posted there as if it was one of the principal things
> ISOC had to offer.
>
> I will never forget the boastful spirit of that Tony Rutkowsky
> CV, even taking into account that Americans usually write their
> CVs in a much more assertive manner than others. One of the
> items on the CV started as follows: "Successfully sued the
> Government of ..." (I think it was Florida, and I don't remember
> for what). Unfortunately I did not keep it, but maybe you still
> have a copy?
>
> It is worth noting that ISOC was extremely badly organised
> at that time. Things slowly improved after you left. You
> may blame ISOC's organisational problems during your tenure
> on a board that did not support you. I will also accept that
> organising a global user organisation such as ISOC is a
> difficult task (as you experienced yourself, but contrary
> to what you claim now).
>
> But your behaviour thereafter has been entirely up to you,
> and it has certainly not been a demonstration of good faith
> towards the thousands of ISOC members who used to pay your
> salary. All this anti ISOC, anti-ITU rhetoric had no other
> point than trying - however clumsily - to grab some glory
> for yourself, no matter how much you destroyed.
>
> In Geneva you even proudly told me that without your filing a
> plea (or something), the US government would never have gone
> into the RFC/Green-Paper/White-Paper process. Isn't that
> striking? According to you, the gTLD-MoU was not supported
> by so many stakeholders, but it took a Tony Rutkowsky,
> nothing more and nothing less, to get the US Government to
> block competition in gTLDs?

  Werner, I think that you are over characterizing Tony's assessment of
  theISOC and the IANA in a way that is not really genuine.  Back in
1996 the IANA and the ISOC leadership together decided to set forth an
effort to have new gTLD's added to the DNS system on the legacy roots.
This process was the IAHC.  By and by through allot of discussion and
debate the IAHC finalized all of the discussion and debate, rather
abruptly I might add, in culminating with the MoU.  There was little
consideration given those on the IAHC-Discuss list and the
Domain-Policy list unless they agreed with the desires of the IAHC hand
picked and selected leadership.  No stakeholder VOTE was considered
except a couple of attempts that myself and a couple of others tried to
initiate on the

IAHC-Discuss list when considering some of the proposals that Dave
Crocker put forth and when attempting to select new gTLD's to possibly
be added to the DNS Root structure.  There was a three to one rejection
of .WEB and .PER as well as .FIRM as selections of what and how many
new gTLD's should be added initially.  But this was flat ignored by
Dave Crocker and company and an arbitrary decision was made on the 7
gTLD's selected personally by this AD-Hoc committee without so much as
any attention paid to the Stakeholoders than participating.  Other than
an occasional acknowledgment that there was other point of view, but
that those point of view didn't really matter..

  All of this than came to the only other alternative left to those
  that were being ignored.  They had to seek assistance from the USG
through their State congressional representatives.  Tony took the only
other step that was left to attempt in EVERYONE getting a voice and
VOTE on how and what should be done.  THis all culminated in the GP and
later the WP, which we are now trying to nail down specifics on
structure now.

  It even appears that these same folks that lead the MoU effort are
  even now attempting to divide and destroy a open, transparent and
fair process which has been clearly demonstrated in the nIANA's
iterations of its recent Bylaws that it has suggested.

  No that you have a bit more of what is really behind the motives of
  these few folks that want to centralize as much as will be allowed,
the DNS and the IP Address systems, in the hands of as few a decision
makers as possible and leaving the Stakeholders the short end of the
stick.  It is amazing to us that such efforts are not easily seen for
what they really are, a sham!

>
>
> Regards
>
> Werner
>
> Tony Rutkowski wrote:
> >
> > Milton,
> >
> > At a certain level - like the famous remark out of the
> > film Jurassic Park - you have to admire the political
> > cleverness of the Postel/ISOC cult.  It's worthy of
> > a dissertation or book at some point.
> >
> > They began to turn an almost inconsequential administrative
> > contract to a DOD thinktank into this revered thing that
> > is described in the third person, but identified with this
> > geek that makes pronouncements beginning with "hello."
> > If this were any other arena, it would be hilarious.
> >
> > I mean really, Postel is treated as if he were the Pope -
> > complete with this notion of infallability of his word.
> > To boot, his employer gets a million bucks a year from
> > the government, plus all kinds of ancillary deals,
> > for playing this role; and in turn the amount of real
> > work is close to zilch.  I mean....this belongs as a
> > special on "the fleecing of America."
> >
> > At the same time, the same crowd has managed to turn
> > the entity that actually did something - NSI - into
> > a bette noir.  Although I suppose they get their just
> > revenge from their revenue stream.
> >
> > It would be fascinating for some student to interview
> > the old boys one of these days, and try to understand
> > how this cleverness happened.  Was it well thought out?
> > Who actually conceived the schemes?  Did they really
> > understand they were being clever?
> >
> > fascinating stuff...
> >
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 Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com