Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: ICANN & the DNSO
From: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 08:54:41 -0700
From an old and valued friend who asked for anonymity. he is NOT a flamer in any sense of the word, so the tone of this surprises me and makes the note worth sending out. djf
* * * N O T F O R A T T R I B U T I O N * * * <SOAPBOX> Have you been following the strange attempts of the Business Constituency (BC) of the DNSO to form a working group and decide on policy & whom to vote for? Both of our companies are founding members of the BC. The whole operation is a typical European-style bureaucratic "consultative committee" operation. Hardly any of the reps seem able to format an email message that can be displayed correctly with any MUA -- including Eudora. Decision making and strategy are now being made via conference calls that are scheduled for 1300 CET. I can't convince myself it's important enough to get up at 0400 (0300?) to participate. I'm probably wrong, but what happened to the well-known and well- understood mechanisms for reaching consensus on the Net? Partly, I think it's because ICANN seems to be pushing for decisions at a rate that's much too fast for the usual consensus-building techniques, but it's also due to the fact that people who are making the decisions seem, for the most part, not to have been involved with the Internet until very recently & just don't know how things are supposed to work. Vote taking seems to be very haphazard with none of the safeguards that we've found desirable over the years. For example, I voted in the latest "election", but still have no idea if my vote was received. I'm not necessarily anti-ICANN. I'm just very concerned that things are moving too fast out of control. And the general feeling I sense in the community is very negative -- much more so than my reaction. I still think it is possible for a half-dozen backbone ISP's to decide it's gone too far, establish their own root nameservers and take 80% (wild number, just a feeling, but >50%) of the *users* of the Internet with them. I *don't* think that would be good for the community, at least until everything else has failed. </SOAPBOX> * * * N O T F O R A T T R I B U T I O N * * *
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- IP: ICANN & the DNSO David Farber (Oct 15)