Re: [ifwp] Re: announcement from the Berkman Center

[Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>]

At 01:56 PM 8/29/98 +0100, Jim Dixon wrote:
>Yes, IANA has been doing its job for more than 15 years.  For most of
>those 15 years that job has been almost entirely technical.  Insofar

Jim, I thought you knew more about IANA's history.  Along with substantial
changes to other aspects of Internet operations and technical development,
evolution to a commercial Internet has resulted in assorted changes to
IANA's work, over the last 8 years.  This has been best evidenced by
constant changes to the creation of the address registries and its
arrangements with the modern IETF.

To view these many changes as strictly technical is to fail to look very
carefully at the details.

>However, for the last two or three years, IANA has been struggling less
>and less successfully with the consequences of the growth of the Internet.

The irony is that I remember thinking the same thing about 7 years go.  In
other words, the "less successfully" attitude has more to do with the
nature of the work than the actual performance of the workers.  In fact,
many years ago, I had to counsel a network/system operations manager that
they could only measure how well they were doing their work by how few
complaints they got.  Operations rarely gets praise.  It's only a matter of
how many/few complaints they get.

>The Internet is no longer a tool of academics and researchers.  It is now

Gosh, Jim.  Thanks for the insight.  Those of us from the commercial sector
who have been developing and running the Internet for the last 8 years
appreciate your having noticed the transition.

>Certainly this is true of some participants.  It may be true of most.
>But what these participants are bringing with them is an understanding of
>the larger world, an understanding that most of those with technical

Efforts which focus on politics and power, with no concern for the
stability of an existing service, do not represent an understanding of the
larger world, except in its most destructive perspective, Jim.

Efforts which focus on carefully integration of existing and new
requirements are always welcome.  They have been for the 25 year history of
the Internet, and they will continue to be.

One hopes that people are careful to understand the difference between
these two, very different kinds of "contributors", Jim.

d/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dave CROCKER                                       Brandenburg Consulting
<mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>            <http://www.brandenburg.com>

Tel: +1(408)246 8253      Fax: +1 408 273 6464       Tel: +60(19)3299 445

675 Spruce Drive                                      P. O.  Box 296, UPM
Sunnyvale, CA 94086                               Serdang, Selangor 43400
United States                                                    Malaysia