IP: Stefs comments on the state of "USG commerce dept vs.

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 00:12:54 -0800
From: Einar Stefferud <Stef () nma com>
Sender: stef () nma com
Subject: Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet 


------- Blind-Carbon-Copy


To: ietf () ns ietf org
From: Einar Stefferud <Stef () nma com>


I am responding to all the prior correspondence in this IETF thread.


02/01 02:23+01 Sascha Ignjatovic  USG commerce dept vs. internet
01/31 18:34PST Karl Auerbach      Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet
02/01 04:51+01 Sascha Ignjatovic  Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet
01/31 22:59EST John Curran        Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet
02/01 05:39+01 Sascha Ignjatovic  Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet
01/31 23:53EST Gordon Cook        Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet
02/01 00:37EST Bob Allisat        On Internet Governance
02/01 00:36EST Bob Allisat        New TLD BOF @ LA IETF '98
02/01 00:51EST Bob Allisat        Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet
02/01 01:16EST Timothy Glenn Sto  Re: USG commerce dept vs. internet


FIRST: It is no mystery as to how the USGovt came to be so involved in
working toward a new form of Internet Administration.  The facts are
that IANA has always been a US Government contracted activity, and as
such, it is the duty (to the Internet and to US Citizens) for the US
Government to clean up the mess that has been created (or allowed to
create itself) before casting the Internet Community adrift in the
cosmos to fend for itself.  A smooth casting off would be very nice!


This is what I see the Green Paper initiating.  At this point, it is a
draft intended to draw comments.  It already reflects a great deal of
careful listening to a great many voices, many of which have been
engaged in vociferous infighting over who is going to control things,
such as: (1) the Authoritative DNS ROOT ZONE, and (2) IP Address
allocations, and (3) who is going to administer protocol registries
and assigned numbers -- All things that IANA has been doing since we
can remember.


(By the way, the IETF and IAB are not as I understand it, part of what
the Green Paper addresses.  Perhaps we should ask for a clarification)


It should be relatively easy to see that IANA has achieved a Peter
Principle promotion to its level of incompetence, in that many of the
transition things that it has tried to achieve of late have not turned
out terribly well.  Certainly not as planned by IANA or anyone else.


So, there really is a need for some responsible party to step in and
help us as a self organizing community to do our self organizing
thing.  This is a rather difficult thing to do if the responsible
party (Our US Govt) must step in as a newbie and apply the wisdom of
Solomon while learning what the internet is all about in the first place.




I have been watching this process for a long time now, and I must say
that Ira Magaziner has done a very responsible job of doing his
homework, and figuring out what the Internet is really all about.  
Of course, he has the resources of the White House at his disposal to
help him become educated, and he has some rather interesting past
experience with past attempts as consensus building from his White
House position, which appear to have taught him some really important
lessons about consensus building processes.  He has done a good job.


SECOND: What we need now that we have been given protective cover for
the next two years (more or less) for a transition, is to find ways to
cooperate with each other within the fast growing Internet Community
to find the right ways to manage our own administrative and allocation
and registry problems.


What we do not need is to engage in bashing each other (or the old
guard) as though this is a zero sum game where-in "whatever you get
must be my loss".  We are staring into a vast non-zero-sum opportunity
with room for all of us, if we can just quit fighting over who is
going to control whom, and how.  Our fighting is our only crisis!


The very essence of the Internet's power is drawn from the cooperation
of all the people on the edges that make their own decisions about
where they want to buy their ISP service, and what quality of service
they want to buy, and how they are going to configure their systems to
InterOperate across the Internet, and how they configure their
end-user applications to InterWork with other end-user' Applications
at some other edge site.


It is clear that it is not possible for anyone to do anything in the
Internet by themselves.  Every action on the Internet requires some
kind of cooperative protocol interaction with some other end.  


So, as people who use the Internet, we need to take a lesson from all
this and settle down into a cooperative effort to resolve our
differences and get along without conceding Czar Power to anyone.


This is the opportunity that the USGovt, through Ira Magaziner's
guidance, and his support from an interagency working group, is now
giving to the Internet Community.


I, for one, am pledging myself to constructive cooperation with
whomever else is involved with trying to work out good solutions for
the problems that face us.  I am also working with a group of diverse
Internet people who are similarly committed, and I hope that this idea
will turn out to be very contagious.  It is clear that the Green Paper
needs some changes, and it is our assignment to constructively work on
making them.


Cheers...\Stef