Re: Choices Faced by ISOC, IFWP and the Internet- What is likely to

[Jim Dixon <jdd@matthew.uk1.vbc.net>]

On Thu, 27 Aug 1998, Dave Paulsen wrote:

> >   Well we all know very well Don Heaths past history and his true
> >   loyalties.Those
> > loyalties are not the interests of the Internet community or the
> > Stakeholders of the net other than the IAB and the IETF.
> > 
> [I know this isn't going to do any good, but...]
> This is where I think you guys are very mistaken. I can't help but to believe 
> that Jon Postel has the interest of _more_ stakeholders in mind than any of 
> his detractors. 

It seems odd to me that an attack on Don Heath is so casually translated 
into an attack on Jon Postel.  These are two very different men.

It is also odd that you claim that the Don Heath/IAB side of 
this debate represents more stakeholders than the opposition.  For 
while ISOC's heart may be in the right place, their declining membership
of a few thousand people is at least four orders of magnitude smaller than
the user community that they claim to represent.  That is, each ISOC
member "represents" over 10,000 users.  As ISOCs membership gradually
declines and the number of Internet users rises exponentially, that 
disparity is rapidly increasing.

>               The IAB and IETF have no other interest _but_ the Internet at 
> heart.

I believe that this is true.  However, that does not mean that the
advice that they are receiving is good.

>      From what I've seen so far, the opposition seems to be upset because 
> 1) _their_ particular interest is not being addressed, 2) they are extremely 
> shortsighted (focusing on current problems), 3) more than a little clueless 
> how the Internet actually works, and usually some combination of the above.

Some of the opposition is upset because of the deadlock that has 
gripped the Internet for the last two years.  IANA made a fundamental
error in turning over the gTLD question to a small group of people,
however good the intentions of those people were.  This error led 
directly to two years of DNS wars.

The DNS wars were the result of poor advice, miscalculations, and basic 
misunderstandings. Wars usually are.

The problem here is that those arguing for a closed solution appear to
have learned nothing from their last mistake.  In particular 1) many 
stakeholder groups are being ignored, despite their considerable
influence; 2) the new corporation is being rigidly structured around
current problems; and 3) those behind the IANA draft seem to be 
peculiarly clueless about the impact of the Internet on the external
world.

What has happened over the last few years, what lay behind the DNS wars,
is a collision at many levels between the Internet and the world at 
large.  Where the questions involved are purely technical, the Internet
has won.  But where the emerging reality of the Internet has collided 
with vested commercial, political, and legal interests it has not.

Or to put it another way, where the technical skills represented by 
the IETF and the IAB have been critical, they have won.  But where 
the Internet technical community is weak, in commercial, political, 
and legal skills, it has lost.  It does not have those skills itself,
and it has not been able to bring in the right skills from the wider
community.  

Unfortunately, this is not a history lesson.  This is going on right 
now.

> Except for the matter of scale, the current debate sounds _exactly_ like the 
> FidoNet NodeList and Policy wars of ten years ago, where people kept 
> making the mistake of not distinguishing between technical and social, and 
> requirements and desires. The democratic process "doesn't mean shit to a 
> switch" (with apologies to Jefferson Airplane.)

Of course.  Of course the same applies to rockets, hammers, needles, hoes,
knives, bows, stirrups, and every other technology that you can think of.
You can't hold an election and vote that an arrow is going to hit a target.  
The technology either works or it doesn't.  You need a good bowman.

Unfortunately, the problems that the new corporation that will replace 
IANA is going to face are in large part not technical problems, and 
technical skills are not particularly relevant to their solution.  

No one is arguing that IANA is without value and no one is arguing that
today's IANA is lacking in technical skill.  A well-constructed 
replacement will preserve IANA's technical role but add to that the
elements necessary to interface IANA and the Internet with the outside
world.  

Unfortunately, the current IANA draft does not do that well.

--
Jim Dixon                                                 Managing Director
VBCnet GB Ltd                http://www.vbc.net        tel +44 117 929 1316
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