Re: significance of RFC standard process

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

Jim and all,

Jim Dixon wrote:

> On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Michael Sondow wrote:
>
> > saw them. The people in Europe, who need the Internet even more than it
> > is needed in the U.S. due to the difficulties inherent in transnational
> > communications, are for the most part completely ignorant that there
> > will be changes to the Internet, and are shocked and angry to learn it
> > when I tell them, because they haven't been informed.
>
> FYI the European Commission has held at least two open discussions of
> these issues to which they issued invitations to everyone that they
> were aware had an interest in Internet matters.

  Well you know that we are interested and we were not contacted.

> In particular the
> Commission approached every Internet association that I know of.  On
> the whole my impression is that the Internet community in Europe is
> somewhat better organized along these lines than the US and Canada;
> for example almost every ISP in the UK belongs to one or more of the
> industry bodies (Nominet, LINX, and ISPA).
>
> > To someone outside the inner circle to which most of you belong, the
> > IFWP is, at best, an unpleasant joke, at worst a nasty conspiracy. It
> > will be viewed that way by Internet users everywhere, because they
> > haven't been included, not even tokenly, in the process.
>
> The IFWP conferences have been open to anyone who walked through the
> door.  Due to short lead times and limited or non-existent budgets,
> announcements have not hit all of the monthly magazines, but at least
> in Europe every publication having anything to do with the Internet
> and every major wire service has had announcements of meetings.
> Coverage has been decent, especially when you take into account the
> fact that the general public has little interest in these matters.
>
> The IFWP steering committee is open to any non-profit willing to
> participate in conference calls and there are several user groups on
> the steering committee.
>
> We do what we can.

  There is allot that you can do.1.) Remove the limitation of non-profit
companies on the steering committee.
2.) Contact either by E-Mail or phone ever major and most minor Internet
     New wire and company that is known to follow these interests.  I know this
     was not done by the SC as I contacted IDG, for instance and they had not
ever
     heard of the IFWP until I mentioned it to them.
3.) You could have also contacted CNN and some of the cable companies
     to get the word out as well.  I also know this was NOT done because I
checked.
4.) As to the money issue.  We offered to assist in this area, and never once
did I
     get a call from anyone on the SC in this regard.
5.) We also offered to set up video conferencing for every conference so far
     and link it through Kinkos in the us and also through some of our EU
     contacts so that a much broader number of people could have participated
     in these conferences.  And yet again, this offer fell on deaf ears as well.

  All in all I would have to grade the SC's handling of the IFWP conferences
as a D+.  Passing, but just.

>
>
> --
> Jim Dixon                                                 Managing Director
> VBCnet GB Ltd                http://www.vbc.net        tel +44 117 929 1316
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Member of Council                               Telecommunications Director
> Internet Services Providers Association                       EuroISPA EEIG
> http://www.ispa.org.uk                              http://www.euroispa.org
> tel +44 171 976 0679                                    tel +32 2 503 22 65
>
>

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