[9397] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: More on clarfication of ISOC - actually a reply to Noel's post
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vinton G. Cerf)
Tue Jan 4 04:43:56 1994
To: Bob Braden <braden@isi.edu>
Cc: ALH@eagle.es.net, com-priv@psi.com, isoc-trustees@cnri.reston.va.us,
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 03 Jan 94 16:34:35 PST."
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 94 04:36:02 -0500
From: "Vinton G. Cerf" <vcerf@cnri.reston.va.us>
Let me try to provide some clarification.
If the standards activity of the IETF is to be given any
protection against liability, the process by which the
standards are agreed needs to be defensible in the sense
that the process is open, fully accessible to all interested
parties, has safety fuses and procedures for resolving
complaints. Moreover, the defending body needs to be
responsible for the process (if it isn't responsible,
then it is hard to argue that it can accept and defend
the liability).
Being responsible for process is not the same as
being responsible for the technical outcome of the
process. Those who follow the history of ANSI will
appreciate this distinction in particular.
ISOC's charter includes initiatives to help further
the evolution of the Internet technology. ISOC
undertook to pay for some of the support costs associated
with the IETF secretariat during 1993 (about $300K
worth), has engaged legal counsel to help frame various
aspects of the standards procedures so as to make them
more defensible and to deal with complex intellectual
property questions (copyrights regarding standards RFCs,
patented technology, trade secrets and so on).
ISOC also has undertaken, after adoption of the POISED
WG output, to assist in the populating of key groups
in the process, notably the IAB and the IESG. The
procedures were developed in the IETF POISED working
group and adopted by the ISOC trustees last December.
At no time has ISOC taken the view that it should
be involved in the operation of parts of the Internet
or that it somehow control its operation. There has
been discussion about the need for coordination
among the network service providers (one can hardly
argue that 21,000 networks can work together with
SOME kind of coordination!), but as far as I know,
the only offer that ISOC considered was to help
convene a meeting of network operators so they could
sort out procedures they thought would be beneficial.
At the moment, the IEPG seems to be the most active
coordinating effort and if that's working satisfactorily,
there may be no net value in any further ISOC effort
along those lines.
Hope this is helpful.
Vint
