At 12:55 19-09-2009, 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."
As far as I am aware, the IETF engages participants from all
countries, including China. There is on-going work within the IETF
on technologies that will be useful to the people living in
China. Participants from China do contribute to the IETF. I have
not seen participants shun because they are from China or proposals
shun because they are made by a participant from China or any other country.
The IETF does not run the Internet. The IETF is not about
politics. Some countries may not agree with the contents of RFC 1984
or RFC 2804. The "IETF does not take a moral position when there is
no clear consensus around a single position".
The choice is not about engaging or not engaging. The IAOC requested
community guidance about a rule implemented in the Hotel agreement
[1]. I do have some side questions but I prefer not to ask them for
now. I suggest that the IAOC does not base its decision on the
results of a survey as the results are not the "sense of the room".
I'll mention that this is a very delicate issue for unstated
reasons. There were some comments that referred to a region in the
Far East. That is to be expected as there is a diversity of
views. It does not affect the technical choices of the IETF.
There was a message posted by Ole Jacobsen [2]. I read "host" in
terms of premises and not in terms of country. It discloses the
rules. The question is whether people attending a meeting can live
with the "warning". Would you:
(i) tone down your comments as there are people, irrespective of country,
that find the IETF norm unbusiness-like.
(ii) self-censor to avoid any interpretation that may be considered as
infringing the rules.
(iii) explore the limits of what is considered as acceptable.
The choice of a location for a meeting is not about making a
political statement. If we focus on the center only, it is going to
be interpreted as a political statement. Whatever decision is taken,
it won't look good.
There are some IETF participants that have business interests in
China [4]. To them, it is a question of whether attending the IETF
meeting can have a negative impact on their ability to conduct business.
Some people have commented on a negotiation of the conditions. The
outcome was obvious [3]. The world does not work as the IETF
does. There was a (non-IETF related) meeting that got pulled off
because some government (not China) thought that it could be used as
a bargaining chip to influence the decision of the organizer on another matter.
An IETF meeting in Beijing will be successful both in terms of
participation and revenue. You can run IPSec sessions from AS
4808. You may receive bogus DNS answers. A secdir review may be
similar to the message [5] posted by Ekr. The lawyers have not chipped in yet.
Regards,
-sm
1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-announce/current/msg06549.html
2. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg58524.html
3. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg58562.html
4. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg58551.html
5. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg58547.html
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