[governance] a very grounded and divergent perspective on

[JFC Morfin]

Dear Parminder, Milton,

The confusion about "public" is with us for even longer (mid-70s) 
than about "free" and FLOSS. At that time we had in addition the 
general State monopoloy situation. This is why we always used the 
technical words (1) "public" (like "public domain") for something of 
equal public legally protected access, (2) monopoly when it belongs 
to a State or de facto private market monopoly, and (3) "regalian" 
when it belongs to State or other Common Interest Adminstration. 
These terms are those being listed by the Internet Polynym Glossary project.

The following terms are also used for the seven poles of governance : 
(1) regalian domain, (2) civil society, (3) private sector, (4) 
international institutions,  (5) standardisation and documentation 
organisations [SDOs], (6) consumers associations, and (7) cultural, 
research and accademics.spheres.

At 14:07 27/12/2008, Parminder wrote:
> >The STANDARDS are open and nonproprietary, but they are useful 
> only because they allow any and all private networks and privately 
> owned equipment to be interconnected.
>
>Any public system - roads, infrastructure of the market, laws, etc - 
>are useful only because they facilitate private individuals. 
>Everyone knows that. This does not obliterate the difference between 
>the public and the private, does it!

I call your attention here. To be open and freely usable (what does 
not mean not-proprietary) is a good thing for a standard; but the 
first qualities are to be efficient and non-biased.

> >However, because the TCP/IP protocol suite's ability to connect 
> networks initially outstripped the understanding and capacity of 
> governments to regulate.... and the understanding and the capacity 
> of the corporates to appropriate one could say that its effect was 
> more libertarian than egalitarian. But its uniform, open nature did 
> indeed level the playing field and afford those interested in 
> communicating more equal rights than they have ever had before.

I authorised TCP/IP on the public international monopoly network in 
1984 (technical support was agreed with DoD end of 1983). It was 
regulated/protected as any other protocols. One should not confuse 
the general technical development of datacommunications with any 
political change. Exotic protocols where more a problem than anything 
else. From my involved experience political changes in bandwidth 
usage resulted  from three things: better political understanding of 
transborder dataflows issues, OSI model analysis (with the still 
remaining problems of the three TCP/IP missing layers), and an 
adequate and consensual UIT collegium tarif response to the web needs.

I observed and still observe a constant decrease in the right to 
comunicate. It started with less capacity due to a much smaller 
bandwidth, itself due to a much smaller demand, itself due to an only 
emergent proposition. Actually constraints such as the DNS root 
limitations and address allocation limitations do not belong to the 
International public data networks, but to the US attempt to control 
the management of its TCP/IP portion and to extend it.

If we want to be serious about discussing the real Internet (the 
International public Network) and, more importantly, the Intersem (as 
the International Semantic and Multilingual relation and services 
[such as RFIDs] facilitation continuity) we must clearly identify 
what we talk about: which technology [IPv4/IPv6 for example], which 
strata [flow, content, meaning], etc. and which barriers and 
constraints to remove. The first ones, IMHO, are the Technical 
Barrier to Trade, Relations and Minds imposed by the lack of 
evolution of the IETF architecture and the delay in organising 
structural and operational Enhanced Cooperations (keeping us with the 
Legacy Internet).

>This is interesting. You say that the socio-political impact of the 
>Internet was incidental. Fine, I may accept that, but you also seem 
>to be non-committal about how it should be, hereon. Don't you want 
>the Internet to have any (socio-political) directions and purpose. 
>If you do want to it to have any, would you please state it. The 
>whole debate is about that. That is what we all are where about.
>
> >more libertarian than egalitarian.
>
>Now, this is fair turf. This is really what we are discussing, the 
>above was mostly avoidable red-herring. (Though the term 
>'libertarian' is used by so many different types, that it often 
>confuses me. I understand you are professing views more of what may 
>be called as right-libertarian kind. Please correct me if I am 
>wrong, in India we are still not very used to these terms). Since we 
>want to keep our discussion practical, and purposeful, I think a 
>very good instantiation of the above political difference is in our 
>views on network neutrality. Will discuss in another email.

IMHO the question is to be concurrently addressed at least at network 
topology, governance and usage layers. I can have totally libertarian 
topology, censoring politcy, and limited usage due to access costs.

I must say, I am always embarassed about ideological comments on 
artefacts which have not been produced along any ethitechnic, i.e. 
with an ethical teleology. For example: PGP has been designed with an 
ethical purpose in mind (to permit civil right people to freely 
communicate). - This is why all I expect from my mobile is not to be 
democratic but to work better.

jfc  
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