Subject: Re: from Ira Magaziner Re: IETF relationship to new IANA

From: "William Allen Simpson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 98 00:20:09 GMT

I would like to echo Perry on this.  I have been telling this privately
to certain folks for many weeks.

I also have a certain amount of political experience.  It requires a
young person's stamina, and I've been retired from any more than token
campaigning for a decade (until recently) -- unless you count helping
depose a couple of working group chairs and reform the IAB, trivial in
comparison.

There are politicians that are trustworthy.  I have worked with several
of them over the years.  A former minister, Lyn Jondahl, was perhaps the
most sterling example in our state legislature.  And my closest friend
for 21 years is currently running for the state house.

But you have to understand that many other politicians are motivated
differently than most of us.  Power and manipulation delight and
energize them.  They study and practice it.

This is NOT academic politics, folks.  You are out of your league.
(I know that I am!)

The negotiation results that we have seen have not been fruitful.
This has been going on behind the scenes for months.

After all that time, and all the "education", the text of the discussion
"green" paper, and the following text of the proposed rule, show that
the IETF processes are still not well understood.  The ISoc is not
mentioned at all, and is to be replaced by a new user group.  The years
of efforts resulting in the gTLD-MoU are not mentioned; the registries
have been turned on their heads, and choose the registrars.

Unfortunately, some of our number have been seduced and flattered by
their recent "closeness" to people perceived as powerful.  It is the
same phenomenon that will entice a high schooler to have an affair with
a married school-teacher, or a college age person with a rich or
powerful or knowledgable person 30 years their senior.

It is so common that the political arena has a term for it -- being "in
bed with" someone politically is not about sex.

As Perry, and Noel, and Donald, and others have suggested, the correct
response to Magaziner when offered 2 choices was to take the second.
Stick to what we know and understand, and eschew getting involved with
the rest.

We should carefully protect our assigned numbers and IETF processes
(imperfect though they may be), let Magaziner write rules about how to
run registries and registrars, give comments as one interest group,
ignore the results that do not affect us, and let the politicians fight
among themselves for the leavings.

Somewhat like we treated ISO....  Remember?

> From: "Perry E. Metzger" <[email-masked]>
> The major chance we have is that we do not *have* to negotiate with
> them. I'm not suggesting hostility. I'm suggesting carefuly and calmly
> explaining "thank you, but no thank you. We prefer to decide the
> future of the way we assign protocol numbers or standards or anything
> else we deal with on our own, by our own peculiar methods. We've been
> self-governing for decades, and we are happiest that way, and until
> such time as someone presents us with a court order, we'll just stick
> to what we know."
>
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