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RE: Voting (again)

2005-04-19 07:14:52
This discussion shows at least that we should try to build on experience and produce an RFC on the way an intergovernance works. The Internet, and the e-society has changed a lot since the inception of the NIC and IETF (this is what I pointed in referring to Doug Engelbart). Noel can call "smaller body" what he called "boostraps". I think what has changed is them to be not only central, but trying to be exclusive, like in a centralised network, to protect their survival when confronted to decentralisation. And becoming sometime aggressive when facing a distributed problematic.

With the NIC, Doug provided the first container for the RFC content (please [re]read RFC 82). IETF then came and shared in the content building lead by Steve Crocker's individual/bootstrap documents. I am not sure all this still matches the global evolution of the network and its today distributed nature. What Phillip seems to document is the difficulty to adapt to the today's demand without some independence, some coopetitivity. Instead of a hierarchical structure for the IETF, inherited from a central NIC and a central IAB with its central IESG, and its unique Truth and its Appeal system, could it not be interesting to have coopetition between various Technical Interest Groups proposing possibly different models and solutions, making practice decide, or dialoguing together when they find a way to converge?

I work on distributed Context Reference Centers. They cannot depend on a single culture since they document cultures, yet they should be interoperable. There may not be a single root file (cf. ICANN ICP-3), but we advisably need a single structured root matrix. We need the same kind of hyperlink approach/support. XML is may be a good way to build and negotiate common infos, but it is not a good vector for sharing them (all the more in different scripts and languages). We do not want a fragmentation, but we do not want either (a) rigid domination (-s, as actually there is a "not much innovative culture" but many different camarilla).

IMHO a technical and R&D intergovernance where various independently governed visions can work and mutually benefit from each others, should be the adequate solution. This is actually what we do today, but not documented. DNS, NAT, VoIP, GRID, P2P, ML.ML... where not invented in using the Internet standard process. I know that the American langage makes no difference between federating and confederating. This may be one of the problem of IETF. For those who make a difference, I submit that the IETF and the Internet standard process suffer from federalism, and would bluntly develop from confederalism, leading to a stable broader variety of compatible, awaited and innovative deliveries.

My 2 euro cents.
jfc

At 14:48 19/04/2005, Noel Chiappa wrote:
    > From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker(_at_)verisign(_dot_)com>

    > Because they only get to do it once and have no expectation of
    > repeating.

One would think that would make them more likely to make changes, not less.

    >> The *whole point* of the NomComm is for it to have roughly the same
    >> views as the IETF as a whole, except in a smaller body.

    > The people whoe wrote the constitution certainly thought that there
    > would be a difference. Otherwise they would have done it the obvious
    > way.

You clearly are not paying attention to the words "smaller body", with
the manifold advantages that brings.


    > As I said, ignoring the 2,500 years of experience since that date.
    > Moreover the Athenian constitution was not exactly a success, they
    > murdered Socrates, got whacked in the Peleponesian war and finaly got
    > whacked by the Romans.
    > Given the fragmentary nature of classical accounts I find it
    > astonishing that you would think that you could understand the dynamics
    > of the organizations at all, let alone whether they were satisfactory.
    > Most of the accounts were written by the people whose interests were
    > served by those arrangements. The one dissenting voice, Plato provides
    > a critique so devastating that the same experiment is not tried again
    > for two millenia.

Alas, much as pointing out the numerous errors above would interest me, it's
a bit far afield for this list. (I'm particularly amused by your calling on
Plato for support - he was profoundly anti-democratic.)

Let me stay somewhat on topic by pointing out that the US Founding Fathers
found the systems of the Greeks (and Romans) worthy of study and inspiration
- so there's at least one group of relatively modern political geniuses who
disagree with your valuation.

        Noel

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