[governance] Revised version of statement on themes for Nairobi
JFC Morfin
jefsey at jefsey.com
Wed Feb 2 05:01:20 EST 2011
At 11:20 01/02/2011, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org> wrote:
> > I'm not inclined to modify the statement on which the consensus call
> > has been made
Jeremy,
Then, we have a problem. As Norbert mentions it, what you describe in
the "consensual document" sounds to be 35 years old. I mean, this was
what I wrote in 1980 while introducing the new network (international
packet switch services - IPSS) among monopolies. By then, the concept
of openness, as being able to directly support non-proprietary
network applications over the transport layer, was not even
conceived. Today, the equivalent top concern would be network
neutrality, which only openness can ensure (and this is required),
but not guarantee.
In addition, the Internet is not a "new" network. You cannot even
qualify the mobiles as a new network. Nobody will understand what you
are talking about. What is really "new" today is the "new Internet
technology reading" as implied by RFC 5890-5895 with our Vint Cerf,
IAB, consensus attained under our IUsers pressure. We still confirmed
it yesterday against the Unicode monopoly. The Unicode consortium is
today's market monopoly (cf. already old RFC 3869 from IAB). For
marketing reasons, it calls for a technical priority given to
machines over people. These machines are the machines of the Unicode
consortium members, and eventually their leader: Google.
This is because the Internet does not support, promote, resist, etc.
it only works or not (like in Egypt). As such, it is operated
(short-term operance), governed (mid-term governance), or planned
(long-term adminance). The Unicode consortium progressively
infiltrates them far more intelligently than the messy ICANN.
The "new Internet technology reading" consists in keeping in mind a
third fundamental principle (there are only two RFCs addressing the
Internet architecture), in which after:
- the "principle of perpetual change", which is the basis for the
manufacturer and operators strategy (as per RFC 1958).
- the "principle of simplicity", which is the basis for the IAB
driven standardization effort of the IETF as per RFC 3439.
- this is the newly introduced "principle of subsidiarity" (permitted
by architectural uncoupling): it was eventually identified as
necessary to address linguistic diversity. The issue was not the
language at this level, but rather to address diversity as such. This
includes the diversity in and of people, applications, network
perspectives, and technologies.
This is the basis for the emergence of the multitechnology
Intelligent Use (IUse) community that is to be, in essence, totally
open and public domain, as I explained before.
What is dramatically "new" is whatever corporations such as Apple,
Google, and Microsoft want to keep private will have to be located in
an open place. Today, Sony was denied access to iPods because Apple
seems to want to impose its ebook reader and library. Now we know how
to oppose these market monopoloies in technically obsoleting their
technically suppoted strategy, through technical additions based on
simplicity, openness and subsidiarity . Market monopolies try to play
on a direct client/server coupling of their applications. We have
made them accept at IETF and want to explore a user centric IUI
(Intelligent Use Interface) that uncouples servers and subsidiary
services mastered by the users. This means big and small marketers
are just providers that the users can choose, not market dictators.
If civil society wants to support users, it now has an architectural
capability to use the internet that is capable of answering the
requirements of the WSIS resolution for a people centric Information
Society. Now, the common target should be to commonly master an open,
simple, people mastered architecture and at least to consider, build,
and comfort its societal environment.
It is certainly too early to commit to something that is just
emerging (the IGF role is only to foster such an emergence), and that
has to be experimented and built upon. However, it is not the best
strategy to only call for what its merchant opponents are trying to
secure and not for what it strives to provide.
Unicode consortium Members (Google, Microsoft, IBM, Yahoo!, Oracle,
etc.) "support development, promote Access to Knowledge, and resist
perpetuating the power of old media and telecommunications empires",
but by stealing our own networks and liberties from us. Now we have
forced them to give up their architectural monopoly, so we can get
our network and liberties back. This is based upon openness, what
Norbert emphasizes; this is based upon subsidiarity obtained by our
clique: we now have to explore, validate through testing, document,
and deploy it.
Today, the priority is to develop Wi-Fi, WiMAX, radio, satellite,
etc. oriented alternatives to ISPs (Usenet as an image) to protect
the surety of the bandwidth as well as the communication security.
The French HADOPI law, Mubarak, and today Obama (by the
Rojadirecta.org/.com case) are showing that opposed powers now shut
access, sites, and the Internet, as a worldwide impact defense
against local opposing forces (or competition, even foreign and
legal, as in the US case).
To protect bandwidth access, this calls for emergency, robust, sure,
and secure alternatives or, at least guarantees, that the civil
society should require in priority. Would you be Egyptian, this would
be your priority, a consensus call being passed or not. Openness is
the only guarantee against the Internet being shut-down because it
permits interoperability during tough situations (of any kind,
including natural catastrophes).
I agree that it is a really new vision: the world digital ecosystem,
wherein the internet is just an element and the people are the center
of every concern and capacity. Otherwise, it will not work. Let us
take the example of terrestrial transportation. Today, there are only
Internet highways that we pay a toll to use. We need to progressively
take control of the roads, paths, streets, etc. so that if there is
an earthquake, and if the highways are blocked, we can still freely
move around and this way collectively contain toll rises.
Sorry.
jfc
>Hm... I think this means that as far as I'm concerned, we fail to have
>consensus.
>
>In my view, the need for open standards which must be adequate not
>only to prevent perpetuate of past monopolies but also prevent the
>formation of new monopolies is an absolutely essential aspect
>of what the term "open Internet" should be understood to mean.
>
>I apologize, I mean I'm really sorry, that I did not participate
>as immediately actively in the drafting of this statement as I
>now wish I had. But please note that I first made the request
>for the inclusion of a mention of the aspect of open standards
>several days before the consensus call was issued, and that the
>whole point of a consensus call is to give everyone the opportunity
>to review a draft statement and speak out if, from any one the
>verious perspectives represented here, there's something seriously
>wrong with the draft statement. From my perspective, this is the
>case. The statement "An open Internet is one that supports
>development, promotes Access to Knowledge, and resists perpetuating
>the power of old media and telecommunications empires on the new
>network." is in my opinion so one-sided that it is actually seriously
>wrong, unless it is complemented with an additional sentence like
>the one that I'm proposing.
>
>When new media and telecommunication empires (think e.g. of facebook
>and twitter) become monopolies through lack of adequate standardization,
>that is in no way better than the perpetuation of the power of old
>media and telecommunication empires.
>
>Greetings,
>Norbert
>
> > On 30/01/2011, at 4:12 PM, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> >
> > >> 1. Open Internet - Network Neutrality on Wired and Mobile Networks
> > >> Open Internet (or Network Neutrality) describes an ideal in which
> > >> the openness of the Internet to the broadest possible range of
> > >> commercial and non-commercial content, applications and services is
> > >> maintained. An open Internet is one that supports development,
> > >> promotes Access to Knowledge, and resists perpetuating the power of
> > >> old media and telecommunications empires on the new network.
> > >
> > > Please add something like
> > >
> > > "An open internet is based on open standards in such a way that it
> > > also resists the creation of any new monopolies in the area of
> > > information and communication technologies."
> >
> > Once the consensus call is in progress, I can normally only accept
> > minor and uncontroversial changes to the text. Although I agree
> > with this addition as a normative statement, it is not usually part
> > of the definition of open Internet or network neutrality. If the
> > theme is accepted for Nairobi then we should be sure to make open
> > standards a part of it, but at this stage I'm not inclined to modify
> > the statement on which the consensus call has been made.
>
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