At Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:55:55 -0400,
Steve Crocker wrote:
The choice is between engaging and not engaging. Engaging is better.
Not engaging isn't constructive. The Internet and the IETF are all
about engaging, expanding, communicating and being open. Much of this
dialog has been worried about possible extreme situations. Let's
focus on the center. More than a billion people live in China and
their use of the Internet is expanding rapidly. They are building
much of the technology and contributing technically. It's to
everyone's advantage to have comfortable, constructive interaction.
Our first slogan was "Networks Bring People Together."
If you prefer to focus on the negatives, here's my analysis:
If we don't go to China, we have charted a downhill course and the
rest of the world will come together without us. The IETF will lose
relevance.
If we do go to China and something bad happens, the consequences will
be much worse for China than for the IETF. The work of the IETF will
suffer a bit, but we'll recover quickly enough. However, China's
quest for engagement with the rest of the world will be hurt more
seriously.
Bottom line: We should go to China with a positive attitude. We're
robust enough to deal with any consequences. If we don't go to China,
however, we have weakened ourselves.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with this analysis, but I'm not sure
it's a complete analysis.
We've been offered a deal under certain terms that at least some of
the community aren't comfortable with. Now, it might well be true that
it's better to take those terms than not if those were the only two
options, but that's not the case here. In particular, we can refuse to
take those terms now and instead attempt to negotiate for terms that
we find more acceptable. It seems to me that even under the analysis
you've laid out that's a superior course of action.
-Ekr
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