Re: Farber on self-governance

[Bob Allisat <bob@wtv.net>]

Dave wrote (full text below):
>The Internet community WAS quite mature enough to handle the situation and
>it was proceeding quite nicely to deal with it. Not smoothly or pleasantly,
>but then it rarely is smooth or pleasant about a controversial topic. But
>it copes and it was coping.
>
>The triggering topic, gTLDs, had been controversial for quite awhile and as
>is usual for such things, a group was formed by IANA to solve the task. It
>went about doing its job in the usual Internet style. A proposal was
>formulated, feedback received, changes made, support garnered: 220
>organizations so far, from around the world. That's not a trivial amount of
>support.

 This is not accurate Dave. The people
 included in the alleged coping process
 (IAHC/CORE/POC/PAB/ITAG) have gradually
 become outnumbered by those who were and
 continue to be *excluded*. I'll not say
 that the dissenting voices, myself among
 them, approached this matter very maturely
 at the outset. I will say that we have made
 considerable progress, developed vastly
 more support and even offered you and your
 collegues a standing place at a common and
 just negotiating table. Something which,
 alas, was never forthcoming when you folks
 were in control of the discussion.

 In my opinion the USG was forced to step in
 when the critical mass of dissent reached a
 point dwarfing a relatively minor list of 220
 odd supporters you perpetually refer to. As
 legitimate as these groups may be they are
 opposed by tens of thousands of organizations
 and by hundreds of thousands of individuals.
 Suggestion: please join the process Dave. Stop
 fighting everyone else or face the consequences
 of your group, a slow moving rather small sized
 object impacting with a huge, swiftly accelerating
 consensus that is forming as we speak.

 I remain commited to including you and collegues.
 However, my estimation is that ya'll have only so
 much time left to adjust your views to change or
 be left behind with no qualms or second thoughts.

 Bob Allisat
 Director, World TeleVirtual Network
 bob@wtv.net - (416) 534-1999 - http://www.wtv.net
 Free Community Network - .FCN free TLD Registry - http://fcn.net


Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com> wrote:
>Please forgive the strident tone of what follows, but the idea of looking
>forward to starting over after 4 years of intense work, continuing to have
>the network community give NSI an extra US$ 1M for every week that
>meaningful competition is delayed, is just a bit frustrating.
>
>Here is the response I sent Dave:
>
>At 05:44 AM 6/16/98 +0900, Dave Farber wrote:
>>I find this very unfortunate -- no very dangerous. In back of the whole
>USG process was, I believe, the hope that the network community was mature
>enough to take on self governance. If we blow it the result will be
>governance by Governments with all the negatives that holds for the future
>evolution of the net.
>
>Dave,
>
>You continue to mis-understand the basic causes for the current situation,
>and therefore misunderstand the way to fix it.
>
>The Internet community WAS quite mature enough to handle the situation and
>it was proceeding quite nicely to deal with it. Not smoothly or pleasantly,
>but then it rarely is smooth or pleasant about a controversial topic. But
>it copes and it was coping.
>
>The triggering topic, gTLDs, had been controversial for quite awhile and as
>is usual for such things, a group was formed by IANA to solve the task. It
>went about doing its job in the usual Internet style. A proposal was
>formulated, feedback received, changes made, support garnered: 220
>organizations so far, from around the world. That's not a trivial amount of
>support.
>
>What changed was that too many people -- some well-intention and some not
>-- decided to attack the work rather than try to help improve it. Rather
>than make specific proposals for specific changes, people decided to just
>declare the process problematic or the composition of the group
>inappropriate, or to find some other reason for rejecting the whole effort.
>It didn't matter that the work was broad-based, that the support was
>broad-based and that incremental change to the work was being pursued in
>the usual, open fashion. It didn't matter that there were no other focused,
>broad-based, concrete efforts. No, it was -- and continues to be -- more
>fun to attack.
>
>We might all have recovered from that, had it not been for the United
>States Government.
>
>Remember that the USG created the original and compelling problem, by
>giving NSI an instant US$50M/year revenue stream and thereby causing many
>others to see potential for large amounts of easy money. Add to that the
>legitimate difficulties because domain names can relate to trademarks and
>we have a major pull for political maneuvering on a large scale. And that
>is what we got.
>
>So, having created the problem, the US Government then proceeded to fully
>destabilize things by throwing into doubt IANA's authority and the
>processes that IANA had established. The government has given credibility
>to a set of rogue activities that were attempting to take over control of
>the root of the DNS. These efforts failed on their own but are now formally
>recognized as legitimate by the Government report.
>
>Worse, the US government has taken credit and taken over work that IANA
>already had under way to move itself under a private corporation. And let
>us not forget that the US government, rather than honor a process that was
>open and garnered support from 220 organizations around the world, has
>tended to give extraordinary weight to highly political efforts by a tiny
>group of folks, who have no Internet technical or operations experience,
>but do have questionable motives.
>
>So, Dave, if we want to consider seriously how to improve things, we need
>to stop giving credence and assistance to people who have no constructive
>intent and we need to get back to Internet basics.
>
>That means getting back to supporting IANA's efforts to evolve, the efforts
>that it had underway for quite awhile, until they were derailed by the US
>government and a quantity of political hangers on.
>
>After more than a year of distraction, the government has come out
>supporting essentially all of the principles and details of what was
>already being done. Except that they have convinced people that we must
>"start over" rather than "continue". After 4 years of effort, we must start
>over?
>
>To all who have found it so easy or necessary to contribute to these delays
>and to the destablilization, we thank you. But it is time to stop
>"inventing" and "starting".
>
>It is time to return to the processes we already had, and "continue" to
>evolve them.


 PS. That wasn't evolution that was
 monopolization. It won't happen again.

 Bob Allisat
 Director, World TeleVirtual Network
 bob@wtv.net - (416) 534-1999 - http://www.wtv.net
 Free Community Network - .FCN free TLD Registry - http://fcn.net

 Bob Allisat
 Director, World TeleVirtual Network
 bob@wtv.net - (416) 534-1999 - http://www.wtv.net
 Free Community Network - .FCN free TLD Registry - http://fcn.net