[governance] Dealing with "Controversial issues" (was : Re: GPLv3 implementation of "user centric identity"?)

[Garth Graham]

On 29-Mar-06, at 6:08 AM, Bertrand de La Chapelle wrote:

>  To help this essential topic be accepted, I therefore suggest,  
> rather than making the theme more detailed immediately as Norbert  
> suggested (although I share his views on substance) but rather to  
> make it more comprehensive and in line with formulations already in  
> the Tunis Agenda. Something like :
> "Strengthening the Trust Framework through User-centric Digital  
> Identity and Privacy"
> (the expression "strengthen the Trust Framework" is a direct quote  
> of Para 39 of the Tunis Agenda).
>

On the "process" of issues selection, Bertrand's post is like rock in  
a sea of chaos.  And I understand that now is not the time for  
debating what the "content" of the issue might mean. However, as Bill  
Drake recently and so accurately nailed it:

> So process and substance demands are intrinsically linked.

While it is our task to get the IGF to listen to us, we should not  
shake the devil's hand before we've met him.  The issue of user- 
centric identity, as I proposed it, speaks to the impact of IP on the  
individual user's capacity for self determination.  Thus it  
represents the individual's point of view (I own my digital  
identity ... the stories my digital identity tells of me online are  
mine by right and get written into the code that enables the  
evolution of IP).  And it does that from inside what I'll call, for  
lack of a better phrase, Internet Culture.  Making it more  
[acceptable?] by reference to the "trust framework,"  a concept that  
relates to the commodification of "information" in the private sector  
side of things, distorts the issue.  To change it in the way you  
suggest would concede too much ground prior to the debate!  The issue  
is useful precisely because it makes a key point from an essential  
"civil society" message - that, in not being "owned" by anyone, the  
internet belongs to everyone.

GG
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