[Membership] Re: [IFWP] Re: (!) Vint Cerf designing network for solar system (!)

[Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>]

Bob Allisat <bob@fcn.net> wrote:

Fred Baker wrote:
>> Wouldn't you describe this as "ad hominem"? What about this discussion
>> is on-topic - the engineering of the internet, or the politics of the
>> IETF itself? What of this discussion has technical content?
>
>> Bob, what have you achieved in the discussion besides getting yourself
>> told - again - that your regime of invective is not well received by
>> the Internet community - that you represent nobody but yourself?
>
>> Please drop this conversation as of now.

> No. In fact as of now I will assume a
> leadership role in the blessed Internet
> Community and tell you to drop your
> attempts to stifle debate as of now.
> Or risk losing any shred of credibility
> or openess to discussion you may still
> possess. These discussions are more
> than germaine - they are critical to
> the evolution of the Internet. Which,
> if you haven't been following events,
> is in severe risk of being sidelined
> by small group of companies and limited
> number of personalities. 

The Internet has been built on a principle
of welcoming all views. And this is for good
reason. The Internet is pioneering and to pioneer
one need to figure out problems that have never
been solved before. One can't solve problems by
restricting discussion, as then you stand likely
to cut out exactly the views that will help to 
identify or solve the problem.

(This was recognized by J.C.R. Licklider who had
the pioneering vision of the Net and also did
the work to make networking a reality. See chapter 8
of "Netizens")

Thus those who care for the Internet or for 
its forward development are those who support
and advocate the open discussion and debate
of *all* views.

The IETF was built on the shoulders of the Network
Working Group and RFC 3 which states:
"...we hope to promote the exchange and discussion of 
considerably less than authoritative ideas."

Furthermore it states: "Notes are encouraged to
be timely rather than polished. Philosophical positions
without examples,or other specifics, specific suggestions
or implementation techniques without introductory or 
background explication, and explicit questions
without any attempted answers are all acceptable."

(See RFC 3)


The issue of ICANN is not only *timely* but crucial
to the existence and development of the Internet,
and thus also to the existence and continued development
of the IETF.

Those on the ICANN interim board have been chosen because
they have a conflict of interest with the matters that
ICANN is to be deciding (called in their gentrified language
"stakeholder" interest)

They are people appointed by some unknown process and 
unknown people to fundamentally change the nature
and future of the Internet.

Thus this is an urgent, to say the least, issue for
*not* only those in the IETF but all those who are
part of the Internet or hope to ever be part of it.

Thus this is all a crucial question to be discussed
and all those trying to squelch the discussion (like
the Berkman Center folks) or anyone from IETF etc
are only showing that they have no concern for 
the present and future of the Internet.

Recently, on the IETF discussion list, someone asked
about scaling the Internet. He received one or two
serious replies and other jokes in response.

Yet the scaling the Internet is the burning question
on the table, and it is exactly the issue that ICANN
is being created to prevent from being publicly 
considered and determined.

Will the global people-to-people computer mediated
communication that the Internet makes possible be
available to all as a right or only to a few 
as a privilege?

This was an issue that J.C.R. Licklider, among others,
recognized had to be determined to be able to determine
what would happen in the development of computer networking.
He noted that if the to-be-developed network would be 
available to all as a "right", then it would be a great benefit
to society, while if it were to only be available to those
selected via a "privilege", its development would be harmful.
 
To make the Internet available to all as a right requires
a public process and public participation in the control
of the essential functions of the Internet like the 
names and protocols and ip numbers and root server
system. These have been under public and cooperative
ownership and control. ICANN is the effort to change that.

There are those who are respresentatives of companies
and other entities that want to grab the Internet
for their own self interested purposes.

They need to be stopped from their grab and only the
free and open discussion of the issues will help to 
clarify what is at stake and why there are those
trying to act in ways that are contrary to making
the Internet available to all for interactive 
and participatory global communication.

I have wondered why there are many in the technical community
who are not participating in figuring out what ICANN
is all about and what to do about it.

Now it becomes clear that the leadership of the IETF isn't
encouraging folks to get into the fray and figure out what
it is all about but instead is encouraging an attack on
those who recognize that the abuse by ICANN of the 
Internet community has to be understood and responded to.
And there are others like folks from ISOC including Vint 
Cerf who have taken on to try to deflect the discussion to
putting IP on Mars as a way to draw attention away from
the privatization of Internet public policy here on earth.

The principles on which the Internet has been built, i.e.
support for communication among autonomous networks and the 
cooperative effort to make that communciation function -- 
these principles are being fundamentally altered by
the creation and activity of ICANN. So if there is to be
an Internet, there must be an examination of what is happening
and why and what to do about it.

And unless this has to be done publicly. That is what Bob's
post is part of and that is why it needs to be welcomed
and encouraged, not attacked.

Is there still an IETF? There is a challenge to its existence
clearly and there are those trying to stifle any discussion
over this challenge.

Let the debate begin in the tradition of the Internet, not
behind closed doors or in private email, but openly and 
welcoming of all into the fray.

Ronda
ronda@panix.com


             Netizens: On the History and Impact
               of Usenet and the Internet
          http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
            in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6 
          Published by the IEEE Computer Society Press

             See especially chapter 7
         "Behind the Net: The Untold Story of the ARPANET
          and Computer Science" and also RFC 3 in appendix