Dear Harald,
1. Very good work. Extremely clear and useful.
At 07:50 03/05/04, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
I have tried to incorporate the extremely useful feedback I got on this
list and from the Korea plenary.
I hope this is ready to send to IETF-wide Last Call.
This is your chance to get at it early :-)
Take care,
2. But I am very embarrassed to understand how "a large, heterogeneous
collection of interconnected systems that can be used for communication of
many different types between any interested parties connected to it", can
be anything else than value-neutral.
This alights the constant disagreement I have with many here. Until now I
considered there were only two visions of the Internet.
1. the very clear 47 USC 230 (f)(1) definition: "The term 'Internet' means
the international computer network of both Federal and non-Federal
interoperable packet switched data networks." This means a network of
machines for the entire globality of the world.
2. a consensual metastructure of names, addresses and protocols to support
numeric relations between its participating users and user agents. This
means a network of users/usages, matching the all the needs the globe over.
In both cases I fully understand what "making the Internet work better" may
mean.
1. to better match the state of the art, to better resist to hackers and to
better grow in size or in technology support
2. to better fulfill the user needs, to permit be surer datacoms, to strive
to support everyone for everything they need.
Timely, safe and scalable. I can live with both understandings as they say
the same thing to a technology oriented body: "the technology must perform
better". In this I agree with Fred Baker's, Dean Anderson's ...
propositions or even with the one proposed if what follows was removed.
In the proposed draft, there is an in between dogmatic vision of the
internet which is _not_ technically rooted (you underline it):
<quote>
We want the Internet to be useful for communities that share our commitment
to openness and fairness. We embrace technical concepts such as
decentralized control, edge-user empowerment and sharing of resources,
because those concepts resonate with the core values of
the IETF community. These concepts have little to do with the technology
that's possible, and much to do with the technology that we choose to create.
</quote>
This means:
- there is an IETF community
- it has core values
- best supporting these values has priority to best supporting the
technology efficiency (first understanding) or the best possible usage
(second understanding).
This makes IETF a Church.
- it dedicates itself to a subset of the internet system it makes the
"Internet" (boarders unclear).
This makes the IETF a sect (I certainly do not want to sound outrageous
here, but calling a cat a baby cat, helps to more clearly identify the
implied meaning).
I have no objection to the principle of such an approach, once it is
clearly published as you do it now. To the contrary, to some extent I
welcome it because it clarifies a lot of issues. In particular why IAB
never published an architectural model of the internet: this model is
actually made of the core values of the IETF community. This explains why
IETF does not need market studies, why users have not their say. Why USG
develops its own internet elsewhere. Why RFC cannot be updated: one does
not update a catechism. It is not technical engineering but applied
evangelization.
I would not even have objections to all this, if my long, reviewable and
reality based analysis matched the (by nature) non negotiable IETF core
values and their resonating technical consequences. But I technically
disagree with them, for a deeper personal core value: to make a good job
out of my own life.
- I understand what is an open protocol and I do not see much of them in
here. I do not know what a fair electron or an honest byte can be. You know
my formula on this: "I do not expect my telephone to be democratic, I
expect it to work". Sorry to be IETF agnostic. This lead me to the Coliseum
several times already.
- from my humble analysis, and accepting many graduated exceptions, I
consider decentralized control, edge-user empowerment and resource sharing
as outdated concepts of the 60s (I entered network operations in 69 and
never used them before meeting the Internet four years ago). I am used and
I made my life dedicated to R&D of distributed global control, user's full
concerted granular empowerment, subsidiarity, numeric continuity relations
and interaction, hybrid networks, etc.
Obviously I may be wrong, but this creed regidity (integrism?),
- makes the IETF technically unreliable when the life of millions and the
world's economy depend on the internet solutions (with small "i")
- should make the proposed goal to be corrected as "The goal of the IETF is
to make the Internet work better along the IETF core values".
Now, a general comment: all this seems inconsistent or even opposed the
rest of the texts of this excellent draft of yours.
Thank you for the clarification about the IETF Church I had not fully
understood yet. But I am low IQ.
jfc
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf