[9393] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: More on clarfication of ISOC - actually a reply to Noel's post
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tony Hain)
Mon Jan 3 18:20:00 1994
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 15:14:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Tony Hain <ALH@eagle.es.net>
To: braden@isi.edu
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, ietf@ietf.cnri.reston.va.us,
In reply to Bob Braden,
I think the track of this thread has been lost...In Aiken's original
note of Dec. 30 he was asking for a clarfication of the ISOC charter.
Not to question its existance, but to understand its breadth.
>>I continually get confused as to what the ISOC is/purports to be.
>>I thought it was a professional society?
>I believe that internetwork protocol engineering and standardization
>cannot feasibly by accomplished by anarchy. Some organizational
>arrangement and machinery is required. Technical judements must be
>made IN ADVANCE of marketing, hence you cannot invoke the magic market
>forces to decide among competing technical alternatives. There seems
>no choice but to set up an administrative mechanism (which could be
>considered a form of peer review), to promote the good ideas and to
>apply some back-pressure against the occasional bad idea. This implies
>chartering working groups, reviewing their progress, and ultimately
>approving their work. Some group of people has to do this. The IETF
>has a mechanism for choosing this group in a quasi-democratic fashion,
>sufficient to make it very likely that good ideas will be accepted and
>bad ones rejected.
I assume it was the 'quasi' part of the democracy that issued the edict:
"...the IESG will not charter any new WGs dealing with OSI technology,
and will not standardize any protocols dealing with OSI technology."
An aside in reply to Noel...
I will have to agree with the position that there is no King,
only an Idol (IPVn) and those who protect it (ISOC/IAB/IESG...).
Last I knew Idol's were more powerful than Kings as they command
'passionate devotion' (webster).
>Now, there is a problem: how to protect that group of experts who do
>the organizing and judging from law suits. The ISOC is the (only)
>solution that has been proposed for that. As you say, you are not a
>lawyer, and I am not a lawyer. We can only take the word of lawyers.
>I have heard the word that the ISOC will provide some protection. Do
>you have contrary information? Do you have an alternative suggestion?
>Would you feel more comfortable if the Internet standards development
>was performed by an industrial consortium, say AT&T, IBM, DEC, GM,
>...? Would you feel more comfortable if Internet standards development
>were under the US government auspices? The government of Finland? The
>UN?
I have not heard anyone question the role of ISOC as a protection body,
only its ability to govern the global network.
>I don't quite understand your great concern here; it is a non-issue as
>far as I know. There has never been a suggestion that the ISOC would
>control operation of the Internet. There has been a suggestion that
>the ISOC could serve as a locus for organizing coordination groups to
>help iron out operational issues, but at present there is no concensus
>that this is needed, and it won't happen until there is a concensus.
Never is a pretty strong position, you might consider that a suggestion
could have been made without your being aware of it. Some extrapolations
of the ISOC acting as a locus end up with ISOC controlling.
>Bob, when important voices like yours are raised in opposition to ISOC,
>it hurts ISOC. People assume that you are expressing the views of
>others in the US government. It hurts me, too, since it devalues the
>$$$ I pay for membership in ISOC. And I believe it harms the interest
>of the Internet community as a whole.
>
>Bob Braden
Again in defense of Aiken, I did not hear an oppisition to ISOC, only a
question about the extent of its charter. Why is it that simple questions
keep being turned into major events?
Tony
