ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Internetgovtech] Status of selection of IANA NTIA transition representatives by the IESG

2014-06-22 15:18:12


--On Sunday, June 22, 2014 20:22 +0200 Jefsey
<jefsey(_at_)jefsey(_dot_)com> wrote:

Dear Adrian,

this is an embarassing situation as no one knows who are the
candidates, their positions, and the criteria of their
selection. Nor, by the way, what the IESG agenda may be
concerning the IETF position regarding the ICANN process. IMHO
the most appropriate solution for a technical body should be
to consider the best and the worst cases and make sure that
the technology can cope with both of them, most probably with
a delegate being specialized in each extreme case?

Jefsey,

I find many things with which I disagree and about which to be
concerned in the various pieces of this process.  But I don't
think Adrian's note identifies a situation about which the IESG
or IETF should be embarrassed in any way.  I believe that the
overall schedule would be very difficult even if ICANN had
presented a starting-point plan to the community for tuning and
ratification, but they didn't and, as far as I can tell, no one
wants that.  That leaves the community with an even more
difficult schedule and, while I can understand some impatience
with delays, I think there are ultimately only two possibilities:

(1) This whole initiative isn't going anywhere and, if there is
eventually an IANA transition away from the current NTIA
oversight model, it will not result from this process and, in
particular, from the Coordination Group's efforts.  If that is
the case, it doesn't make any difference what the IESG does and
no one should be concerned about whether or not they do it
(except, possibly, about the time they spend discussing it that
could be spent in other ways).

(2) The initiative is important.  In that case, I would much
rather have the IESG think carefully about what they want, who
they want to do it, and any details they want to work out about
relationships, discussing that with each other and, if needed,
with possible candidates, rather than do anything hasty in order
to get a second person appointed quickly ... especially since I
note that several other constituencies haven't announced
selections either.  And I think we should be pleased, and not
embarrassed at all, that they are taking that level of care.

Otherwise, along RFC 6852, this is encouraging users and
operators considering contingency situations where solutions
could be asked for, proposed and implemented,  "regardless of
their formal status". 

I don't see any way in which that would follow, even if I were
more confident I understood what you were talking about.

This is exactly the situation where I
put myself as a Libre non-profit ISP having to protect the
best symetric (inbound/outbound) access to my members.

It is not clear to me why you think --as I assume from the above
that you do-- protecting "best symmetric ... access to your
members" has anything to do with IANA, how it is overseen, or
any other aspect of this process.    Even if it did, it would
not be clear to me why you should be seeking representation in
the process via the IESG or otherwise feeling that you have
standing to complain about what the IESG is or is not doing.

I do not worry too much due to the actual flexibility of the
technology but I am definitly sure that the solutions I will
implement in case of difficulty will not be those advocated by
the ICANNTIA project, as they would be the source of that
difficulty. Since many of other operators and users will
proceed the same in their own unknown way, some by local
regulations or national law, without prior MSist coordination,
the result may turn out to be technically operational but
politically confuse, and difficult or even impossible to
globally concert again. This would then be the end of the IETF
as a global body or even worse if the situation degenerated.
...

And now I'm sure I don't understand what you are talking about.
Nothing in the NTIA-ICANN-IANA relationship has ever had an
influence on IETF protocol decisions (other than as comments
from the community).  If something causes difficulties in the
design or implementation of what you decide to do, it will
either be administrative or policy decisions involving your
providers or French, EU, or possibly RIPE, but not NTIA or IANA
in any direct way.  IETF protocol decisions may make it easier
or harder to do whatever you intend to do (and, in particular,
may influence what you can easily obtain as Common,
Off-the-Shelf, hardware or software, but NTIA and IANA don't
have much influence over those decisions either... and it has
hard to blame the IETF for not facilitating whatever
non-conforming things you want to do.

And, again, I don't see how you classify or name some aspect of
what is going on changes anything.  You may have disagreements
with decisions the IETF makes and/or the patterns of IETF
protocol work.  You may want to go off in other directions and
may even consider some of those directions to be more true to
the spirit of the Internet model than what you see the IETF
doing.  Whether you would be, by some measure, right or wrong,
it still seems to me to have no interaction at all with this
NTIA-IANA transition proposal.

    john