[9420] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Aikens last (but long) posting/comments on ISOC and related issues
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Noel Chiappa)
Wed Jan 5 01:12:33 1994
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 94 01:11:41 -0500
From: jnc@ginger.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
To: Stef@nma.com, com-priv@psi.com, ietf@cnri.reston.va.us,
Cc: jnc@ginger.lcs.mit.edu
If the good will of the IETF/IAB/ISOC participants is the only thing
holding the Internet together, it will surely fall apart one day.
... good will ... is not going to save the Internet if one day the real
(non-goodwill) glue that holds it together comes unstuck.
Depending on what exactly you mean by "good will", I may or may not be in
agreement with this position.
Let me just say briefly ("Yah, Right", I can hear you all think :-) that my
notions of the importance of individual character in the functioning of the
IETF (and the Internet as a whole) aren't naive gooody-goodyism. I spend a lot
of my time studying history, and as the line goes, "history is nothing more
than a retelling of the follies and crimes of mankind". If I tenaciously hold
on to certain "old-fashioned" virtues and ideals, it is because I have *seen*
what happens to societies and civilizations which ignore them.
I suspect that we may not in actually in disagreement here. If you mean by
"good will" something like "people's basic good nature", I agree with you. I
too think appealing to people's "better instincts" is doomed, since I don't
think people have intrinsic good natures. However, long-term self-interest
can, I believe, cause people to act in ways that look like "good will".
I don't want to get sidetracked into a long philosophical/historical debate
here (some of us would enjoy it, but I suspect most would be bored :-), but my
thinking is that it is in everyone's long-term self interest to act with
character and "good will". It is also my thinking that there is no way to
design an organizational system which will continue to work when the players
in it no longer exhibit that elusive quality called "character". So, I reckon
"good will" will always be a necessary component of success. In that way I
disagree with you.....
And now, back to our debate on the proper role for the ISOC!
Noel
