[governance] remote paticipation via standardized protocols (was Re: Open consultations)

[Roland Perry]

In message <20110518145755.A98BA15C0DF at quill.bollow.ch>, at 16:57:55 on 
Wed, 18 May 2011, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> writes
>Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
>> If you want to exercise some central and dogmatic control of which
>> applications people are allowed to use on the Internet, I would have
>> expected a caucus such as IGC would be the last place you'd find people
>> agreeing.
>
>What I'm asking for is standardization of protocols and data formats
>used in communcation, specifically with the goal of internet users
>having greater freedom of choice with regard to what software they
>can use while still being able to communicate.

The problem with something like Remote Participation is the way it 
combines several "multimedia" modes, for example:

Live video and audio
Streaming text for transcription
Chatroom
Copy of projected images

with an integrated log-in and/or subscription system.

It's only one thing for everyone to install and get working, rather than 
several.

>Or are you claiming that it is not a problem if network effects of
>communciation threaten to force everyone to use operating system
>software from one of two vendors, both of them providing their
>software only in EULA-restricted binary-only non-modifiable form,
>both based in the same country -- even if apart from these network
>effects alternatives would exist? That would be a pretty extreme
>view of software-neocolonialism.

We have to be practical, and covering Windows, Apple and Linux (that's 
three, not two, even assuming you can count Linux as only "one") with a 
zero-cost application will satisfy almost everyone.

If things change, other solutions might be preferable, but this one 
works, now, and we should embrace it. The energy should go into talking 
about the IGF's core purpose, not criticising their choice of remote 
participation tools (when they changed each year because of a new host 
country, it was much worse).
-- 
Roland Perry
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