Subject: RE: Internet Companies Welcome Idea of G

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 11:10:06 +0000

Vint.

After attending a GIP meeting and talking to many of the people involved,   
I have to agree with you. However, it seems to me that if people like Jim   
Clark are going to be so visible at the head of the GIP - as he was at   
the London meeting about encryption - then  people will always presume   
that these groups have a personal set of motives. Even you could be seen   
as a mouthpiece of MCI. I'm not saying you are, but with such   
big-business interests to the fore, perhaps its understandable that   
people are sceptical, especially those outside of the US and the major   
trading states. Whilst I don't know anyone off the top of my head,   
perhaps if the GIP has a nominal head who was not in the pay of a major   
telco/software company, it would appear less threatening. Maybe a Carel   
Van Miert, Leon Brittan type of politico.....

Anyway, just a thought.....

mike

Mike Bracken
Deputy Editor
UK Internet Magazine
(t) 44 171 208 5058
pager - 01523 120720

 -----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [SMTP:MIME @INTERNET [email-masked]}]
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 1997 12:25 AM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; Mike Bracken
Subject: Re: Internet Companies Welcome Idea of Global Charter (fwd)

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 --
Stef,

GIP isn't trying to be King at all. It's just a group
of companies with a lot of interest in the healthy growth
of the Internet and they have opinions about policy, like
everyone else.

There is no cabal here.

vint

At 06:54 PM 11/2/97 -0800, Einar Stefferud wrote:
>Well, I advise everyone to remember tha the Intrnet is actually like
>an economy.
>
>And I note that after many decades of war and many milions of
>casualties, the world population and almost all goverments,
>corporations and other institutions have learned that owning and
>centrally controlling an economy is not a good diea.
>
>All governements that have attempted central control (e.g.,
>"ownership") of an economy seem to now wish they did not;-)...
>
>I suggest that GIP members should all think very carefully before they
>assert any kind of control over the Internet.
>
>I also would suggest that MCI and Netscape have not yet shown that
>they really understand the Internet all that well;-)...
>
>So, what I see here is a contiuaqtion of the great question of
>
> "Who is going to be king of the Global Hill?"
>
>My response is:   "Who said we need one?
>
>In other words, who died an letf the GIP to be King?
>
>Cheers...\Stef
>
>

---

From: "vinton g. cerf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 06:26:03 -0500

Mike,

Perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish personal from
business motives. As nearly as I can tell, GIP has business
motives in the sense that they would like the general regulatory
and legal framework surrounding Internet to be as open and
conducive to competition as possible. I think it is fair to
say that this particular group understand both that much
cooperation is needed to establish a common playing field
on which they can they engage in competition, often
with each other.

Perhaps my view is distorted by my interest in commercial
use of Internet, but I don't see those motivations as
especially foreign to the interest of IETF - which is itself
engaged in the process of creating the technology of the
playing field.

Your note and Stef's seem to suggest that it's bad to care
about business interests and I don't think that's right.
Doing business with, on and about the Internet is what
makes it possible for IETF to continue to do its work,
for example, and that seems to me a good thing.

Vint

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 13:57:08 -0500

Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 06:26:03 -0500
   From: "vinton g. cerf" <[email-masked]>

Perhaps a better way of cutting it is in terms of who's *not* been at
the table at various discussions.  Let us take for example the issue of
portable IP addresses.  It has been argued that not withstanding the
position of the FCC with respect to 1-800 numbers (and how the telephone
companies claimed it was "technically impossible" to provide 1-800
portability before the FCC forced them to do it --- and then suddenly it
became possible) that it is similarly impossible to offer IP address
portability.

This view may or may not merit, and it is not my purpose to debate it
here.  However, let us see who has been at the table in making these
decisions:

	* The commercial ISP's, which have every business and commercial
		reason to force users to be locked into IP address,
		since users are much less likely to change providers if
		it will cost them a very painful IP address renumbering.

	* Engineers from companies like Cisco, who would stand to lose a
		great deal in terms of their investment and development
		in their current routing systems, if a fundamental
		change in how we did routing was required in order
		provide IP address portability.

In contrast, who has *not* been as well represented these forums, by and
large?  The users themselves --- the only ones which would really stand
to benefit from having IP address portability!!!  (Yes, there are a few
exceptions within the IETF, such as the auto industry --- but I claim
they are the exception that prove the rule.)

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that the people who claim that IP
address portability is impossible are wrong, or are plotting to screw
over the users --- and I'm not making this claim at this time.  However,
the lack of representation of the interests of the actual *users* in
many, if not all, of these various attempts at defining the "governance
of the internet" does make it very easy for there to be the appearance
of unfairness and back-room dealings from the point of view of those
that are disenfranchised.

Fundamentally, there are many interests that are at stake here, and
simply looking at things from the point of view of the commercial
Internet interests will skew things --- and not necessarily in
directions that would be good for all concerned.

						- Ted

---

From: "Rick H. Wesson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 11:56:10 -0800 (PST)

Ted,

After a long and lengthy debate on DNS governance...

> they are the exception that prove the rule.)

There were lots of public discussion on the DNS issues, it did
seem a bit more complicated that what the "users" of DNS would seem
to enjoy. The dabate was also filled with a handful of net "kooks" whom
would drown out the debate with too many posts... Some of the users
came to the meetings and posted comments, alas it would seem that
the utility of the Internet means more to business than to end users of
the net today. The users just want it to work, and don't care who
gets rich making it work.

I wish that there were more democratic processes and that more 
technicly competant folks participated, alas that is not always
the case. 

> directions that would be good for all concerned.

Correct! Unforchanately the net is driven by business now, and
not by your ability to develop cool or interesting things. It would
seem to me that the Academic peroid of the net is over, which for me
is sad. I would have enjoyed working on things for their intlectual
value rather than for profit motives.

I sincearly hope that some one does atempt to figure out what is
in the interest of the "users" and atempt to persuade governance
in that direction.

Regards,

-Rick

---

From: Craig Partridge <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 12:31:14 -0800

In message <[email-masked]>, "Rick H. Wess
on" writes:

    >Unforchanately the net is driven by business now, and
    >not by your ability to develop cool or interesting things.

I realize that the original context is Internet addressing, but this
comment is so wildly and dangerously wrong that I want to step on it now.

Fundamentally what makes the Internet technology work, what has driven
this boom in business, is its openness -- for the ability for anyone
to develop a new application, *without* coordinating with other folks, and
launch it on the net.  Consumers can then decide what they want by
acquiring the application or service.

In short, the net continues to be driven by people's ability to develop
cool and interesting things.  I.e., where did the Web come from, or mobile
IP?

In short, the openness of the network drives business, by creating new
business opportunities open to a fairly broad range of folks.

Craig

---

From: "Rick H. Wesson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 12:46:08 -0800 (PST)

Craig,

> comment is so wildly and dangerously wrong that I want to step on it now.

Ummm, nope i wasn't even touching on IP addressing.
 
> acquiring the application or service.

The Standards work! I was *NOT* taking a poke at the usefulness or utility
of standards, RFCs or any of the other products of the IETF process.
I was taking a poke at the fact that you have to be a largeish company
or organization to get things through the standards process.

The above view is my own and I am sure others have had diferent 
expectations and experences with the IETF. This openion is from
my own disalusionment from what I expected from the process.

-Rick

---

From: Jim Dixon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 22:58:01 +0000 (GMT)

> they are the exception that prove the rule.)

There is a curious logic at work here.  If we were in fact talking about
the auto industry, everyone would accept that users make their opinions
known by buying cars.  The automobile companies do cooperate in 
developing standards, but users communicate with their checkbooks.  
Why is the Internet supposed to be so different?  Why shouldn't the 
industry just be free to offer the widest possible range of solutions?

The honest truth is that end users haven't any idea at all of how 
the Internet works and how to judge various technical proposals.  What
they can sensibly express opinions about is end results.
 
> over the users --- and I'm not making this claim at this time.  

Let's assume that this particular sentence, with its odd assumptions 
about router design, is just an error ...

>                                                                However,

but this pseudo-democratic appeal is truly bogus.  

Disenfranchised?  

This isn't an election.  No one is stuffing ballot boxes.  The simple 
fact is that you don't decide technical issues by having elections.
You get together a bunch of technically competent people and sort out
the issues on a technical basis.

You don't design cars by asking drivers to make engineering decisions.
You get engineers to design the best cars that they can, and then you
let people buy whichever cars they prefer.  

> directions that would be good for all concerned.

This sort of sentiment leads to cars designed by politicians.

--
Jim Dixon                  VBCnet GB Ltd           http://www.vbc.net
tel +44 117 929 1316                             fax +44 117 927 2015

---

From: Einar Stefferud <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 11:22:21 -0800

I agree that separationn of business and personal interests is a good
idea, but I also believe that recognizing and announcing potential
conflicts of interest are appropriate in these matters.

I never hide my business interests (as a private counsultant and a
Co-founder of First Virtual Holdings Inc.), though I do try hard to
keep them out of affecting my IETF participation.

Given the little that I know about GIP, I have great difficulty seeing
how it is just a nice bunch of guys acting without regard to their
direct business interests, especiually when they are involved with
maor investments in Internet related initiatives, where-in the entire
future of their companies appear to be at stake.

So, more complete (rather than less) disclosure woudl help me to feel
better about what the GIP is trying to accomplish.  I will agree that
this all might just be a PR problem, but to me this recofnition does
not eliminate the problem;-)...

I have been around this industry for a very long time, and I find
startling similarities in the words and the behavior here and in other
situations where the initiateves were not so benign as here claimed.

So, I suggest that you try to get GIP to mend its PR fences.  Now that
the fat is in the fire, doing nothing about this will send a clear
signal.  (Just a little free PR advice;-)...

Cheers...\Stef

>From your message Tue, 04 Nov 1997 06:26:03 -0500:
}
}Mike,
}
}Perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish personal from
}business motives. As nearly as I can tell, GIP has business
}motives in the sense that they would like the general regulatory
}and legal framework surrounding Internet to be as open and
}conducive to competition as possible. I think it is fair to
}say that this particular group understand both that much
}cooperation is needed to establish a common playing field
}on which they can they engage in competition, often
}with each other.
}
}Perhaps my view is distorted by my interest in commercial
}use of Internet, but I don't see those motivations as
}especially foreign to the interest of IETF - which is itself
}engaged in the process of creating the technology of the
}playing field.
}
}Your note and Stef's seem to suggest that it's bad to care
}about business interests and I don't think that's right.
}Doing business with, on and about the Internet is what
}makes it possible for IETF to continue to do its work,
}for example, and that seems to me a good thing.
}
}Vint
}
}At 11:10 AM 11/4/97 +0000, [email-masked] wrote:
}>Vint.
}>
}>After attending a GIP meeting and talking to many of the people involved,   
}>I have to agree with you. However, it seems to me that if people like Jim   
}>Clark are going to be so visible at the head of the GIP - as he was at   
}>the London meeting about encryption - then  people will always presume   
}>that these groups have a personal set of motives. Even you could be seen   
}>as a mouthpiece of MCI. I'm not saying you are, but with such   
}>big-business interests to the fore, perhaps its understandable that   
}>people are sceptical, especially those outside of the US and the major   
}>trading states. Whilst I don't know anyone off the top of my head,   
}>perhaps if the GIP has a nominal head who was not in the pay of a major   
}>telco/software company, it would appear less threatening. Maybe a Carel   
}>Van Miert, Leon Brittan type of politico.....
}>
}>Anyway, just a thought.....
}>
}>mike
}>
}>Mike Bracken
}>Deputy Editor
}>UK Internet Magazine
}>(t) 44 171 208 5058
}>pager - 01523 120720
}>
}>
}

---

From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 15:50:47 -0800 (PST)

> or organization to get things through the standards process.

This is simply not true. When I originally got involved with the IETF I worked
for a small college -- a college which, far from encouraging my participation,
begrudged me the time to do it. I paid my own way from day one.

Subsequent to that I became an employee of the company I helped found back in
1987 -- a company which, while enjoying substantial growth, still is quite
small by any standard.

And in spite of this history I've been able to get a number of things through
the process. MIME, for example.

As far as large companies go, I find that they are often spectacularly bad at
getting things through the process. A certain amount of focus and energy is
required to get things done in the IETF or any other standards body, and people
who work for large companies often find themselves diverted before they can
complete something.

In fact my involvement in the IETF has, if anything, suffered as a result of my
change of employer. True, my employer now pays my IETF travel expenses, but the
demands on my time are far greater now than they ever used to be. This
translates directly into my getting less standards work done.

> my own disalusionment from what I expected from the process.

I respectfully suggest that you may be mistaken in attributing your trouble
with the process to not working for a large company.

				Ned

---

From: Gordon Cook <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 20:26:26 -0500 (EST)

If I may be forgiven for speaking up in the company of my seniors, :-)
I think Steff is correct in everyway.  given how the IAHC/IPOC/CORE effort
- well intentioned or not - has shaken up many many people.   and given
how the Interagency Task force on DNS response to that effort has not
exactly received rave reviews - I would suggest that the level of trust
among many parts of the community is a bit shakey.  FULL DISCLOSURE by
these folk in such a context seems to me to be mandatory.

************************************************************************
The COOK Report on Internet               For subsc. pricing & more than
431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA     ten megabytes of free material
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Governance at the Crossroads ($175)  http://cookreport.com/inetgov.shtml
************************************************************************

---

From: Sampo A Syreeni <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 14:36:13 +0200 (EET)

>industry just be free to offer the widest possible range of solutions?

Indeed. But once auto companies start to dictate how to drive your car,
crowds get upset...

>fact is that you don't decide technical issues by having elections.

What is this highly technical aspect in 'governance'?

>the issues on a technical basis.

Sounds like IETF to me. So where does GIP fit? And certainly you don't
suggest that the Internet is so similar to the auto industry - Internet is
composed mainly of the people that use it, it ain't a single, unified front
for a particular branch of industry. Multicultural, multivalued, global and
dynamic don't rhyme with governed.

Sampo Syreeni <[email-masked]>, Decoy/Dawn, Student (Math, Helsinki University)
Only gods and gurus like doing math. We, we just kinda like having it around.

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 15:51:54 -0500

Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 22:58:01 +0000 (GMT)
   From: Jim Dixon <[email-masked]>

I am not proposing that we ask the end-users to design the cars.
However, the end-users need to have a voice in the requirements which
drive the technical design.

Also, your analogy breaks down because the design of an individual car
does not preclude other cars from being designed differentlyl, and users
do have a choice about which kinds of cars that want to buy.  However,
there are certain architectural decisions which affect the fundamental
nature of the Internet, where users *can't* choose something different
after those decisions are made.  The car analogy doesn't work here.

							- Ted

---

From: Harry S Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 1997 17:59:46 -0500

We may design cars differently, but we all drive on the same
roads!

---

From: Jim Dixon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 23:08:52 +0000 (GMT)

> drive the technical design.

Over much of the last century there was a clear competition between 
two views of how people's needs should be met.  In one, the "democratic
centralist" view, individuals claiming to represent the people designed
systems that produced the Trabant, the Lada, the Berlin Wall, and other such 
wonders. The other approach involved people voting with their
chequebooks.  That approach worked better.

The end users of the Internet can't provide direct input into the
requirements.  But they can vote for what they want by buying it or 
downloading it.  

> Also, your analogy breaks down because the design of an individual car

It wasn't my analogy: it was yours ;-)

> after those decisions are made.  The car analogy doesn't work here.

Most of the "Internet governance" questions do not in fact involve
fundamental questions.  It is perfectly possible, for example, to set
up a variety of different domain name registries and let them compete;
in fact, this is the prevailing situation in much of the world.

In the UK, for example, the .UK registry used to be run by a committee
that wrangled endlessly over delegations.  People registered in .COM.
Then the commmittee was replaced by Nominet, a very efficient operation
that delegates names in seconds.  People switched their registrations 
to Nominet and .UK.

Competition and the open market work.

---

From: Bob Stewart <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 1997 18:15:23 -0500

>We may design cars differently, but we all drive on the same

Complete analogy breakdown.  Roads range from paved to dirt, mud, and ruts
and from multilane to single-track.  Some drive on the left, some on the
right.  Some people only drive on certain kinds.

Sorry about butting in.  I'm annoyed about something else and this exceeded
my patience limit.

	Bob

---

From: [email-masked] (Christian Huitema)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 18:42:15 -0500

> systems that produced the Trabant, the Lada, the Berlin Wall, and other
> such wonders. The other approach involved people voting with their

Whose checkbook voted for the California emission laws ?

-- 
Christian Huitema

---

From: Marc Horowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: 05 Nov 1997 19:00:18 -0500

>> Whose checkbook voted for the California emission laws ?

Probably those of the people who were paying to clean up the water so
they could drink it and the air so they could breathe it.

Not to be hypocritical or anything, but hasn't this gone a bit astray
of Internet Engineering?

		Marc

---

From: "Matt Crawford" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 1997 18:59:39 -0600

> Whose checkbook voted for the California emission laws ?

Mine.

Next question?

---

From: Greg Shepherd <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 06:53:16 -0700

Sure it does. Currently, huge SUV's with only one occupant dominate our
roads. It would be much more logical and ecconomical if we all drove small,
ultra-light-weight, single passenger vehicles; not much larger than a
motorcycle. You can build one, but chances are your state won't let you
register it, it would be illegal to drive, and if you did drive it, you
would be crushed and killed by a large SUV.

Today, engineers are not designing the 'best' cars they can. Automotive
design is restricted in a vast number of ways. There is a box, a 100
year-old-box, that automotive engineers must design within.

Greg

---

From: Billy Biggs <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 08:52:21 -0500 (EST)

I believe that most of the technical community would be quite happy to see
an IANA-lite like proposal.

My only fear is this: It seems to me that DNS is a big marketing and
political can of worms, and that an IANA-lite proposal should take
this into consideration.

A new non-profit running the gTLDs (or CORE running the gTLDs) should also
have direct control over the roots.  Lets not risk the political position
of a technical IANA-lite by allowing it to control who controls the country
codes.

A deciding body needs to cordinate IP assignment, ASN assignment, etc. to
ensure the technical operation of the Internet at large.  DNS as a whole
has become too political.

Billy Biggs
Division 8 Networks
[email-masked]

---

From: Jim Dixon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 14:25:01 +0000 (GMT)

On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Billy Biggs wrote:

> have direct control over the roots.  

Setting standards for the root name servers is a technical function.
We don't want trademark lawyers setting the specifications for bind.

Our proposal is that responsibility be distributed over several levels:

*	technical standards should be determined by IANA lite, which
	should also have oversight over the operation of at least the
	primary name root server

*	responsibility for determining which gTLDs go into the root
	should be passed to something similar to a beefed up and armour 
	plated POC; this could very well be the existing POC upgraded
	to the standards of the green paper; call this the IGA 
	("International gTLD Authority")

*	the registries would actually operate the (usually shared)
	gTLD databases 

*	registrars would deal with the outside world

So long as IANA lite only sets standards and manages the root zone in 
a neutral way, accepting instructions from responsible parties (the
sovereign governments where nTLDs are concerned, the IGA for gTLDs)
it should be secure.

The IGA will require substantial financial resources; it should be
indemnified by the gTLD registries.  It should also exact a fee 
from these registries sufficiently large to allow it to build 
financial reserves.

The IGA should in turn indemnify IANA lite.

>                                     Lets not risk the political position

IANA currently doesn't do this.  It adopts a very sensible position:
it follows the directions of the sovereign government corresponding
to the country code.  So long as it does exactly this, requiring only
that the directions make sense technically, then it is acting as a
neutral body and is blameless.
 
> has become too political.

It would be possible to split IANA lite into separate entities, with
one (IANA/DNS) handling DNS, but this organisation would be tiny and
have exceedingly little to do.  It would seem more sensible to get 
some very good lawyers in and have them build a rock-solid legal 
firewall between IANA lite and the IGA.  If they decide that it is
not possible to build a perfect firewall, OK, then split off IANA/DNS.

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:01:03 -0500 (EST)

Jim,

Count me as one of the supporters of the IANA-lite proposal.  In fact, I
would like it ultra-lite.  Basically, my gut feeling is that "standards
and politics should not mix."  The IETF is good at making standards, and
derives whatever authority it has from the technical quality of these
standards.

Out of the two options that Brian outlined:

>  - leave the assignment of protocol numbers with the IANAng,
>    get to choose some board members, and have significant influence;
>
>  - do the assignment of protocol numbers ourselves, not get to
>    choose any board members of IANAng, and have no influence.

I recommend that we choose option 2, the reality of independence against
the illusion of political power.  Frankly, nominating two members in a
board of 20 is not a significant power.  Out of the tasks that IANA does
today, domain name TLD allocation and IPv4 address assignment should be
spawned.  The management of protocol numbers, and the other hand, should
be solidly tied to the IETF.  And the publication of RFC, which has been
historically linked to IANA, should definitely remain an IETF function.

The situation today is that RIPE, APNI and ARIN form a stable and
technically competent infrastructure for assigning IPv4 addresses -- no
much need for IETF meddling there.  The situation of domain names is not
as consensual.  But there is hardly any evidence that more IETF meddling
would help...

-- 
Christian Huitema
----------
See you at INET'98, Geneva 21-24,July 98 http://www.isoc.org/inet98/

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 17:43:33 +0000

Jim,

> *       technical standards should be determined by IANA lite, 

Hello? I thought that was the IETF.

  Brian