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

[Norbert Bollow]

Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
> In message <20110519075934.696A515C0DF at quill.bollow.ch>, at 09:59:34 on 
> Thu, 19 May 2011, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> writes
> >> If things change, other solutions might be preferable, but this one
> >> works, now, and we should embrace it.
> >
> >Wishful thinking and denying that a problem exists does not
> >help someone for whom this "solution" does not work (like it
> >is the case for me, with a rather ordinary Ubuntu setup with
> >Adobe flash installed from the "Canonical partner repository",
> >so according to Roland's assertions the "solution" should
> >work, but in my actual experience that is not the case.)
> 
> What I said was that there were more than two platforms available.

Your exact words were:

:: 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.

In my understanding, that was an assertion that it "works" under
"Windows", "Apple" and "Linux", which is at odds with my experience
with a very typical set-up of the latter.

Maybe I should also mention that assertions that the "solution" "works
now" and "we should embrace it" are rather unfriendly things to say to
someone who was just locked out from being able to participate because
what "works now" doesn't for everyone and even the fall-back option of
live transcripts + email isn't made avalable, presumably as a result
of a mistaken belief that the Abobe "solution" works for everyone?

(Yesterday the "live transcript" was working but a timely intervention
that I submitted by email got ignored, probably because nobody was
watching the email address that had been provided, and today the "live
transcript" links just give the message "Event is not active".)

> >Wishful thinking and denying that a problem exists also does
> >not help to address the fundamental internet governance problem
> >that --because of the insufficient emphasis on strictly open
> >standards in key communication related areas-- there is strong
> >socioeconomic pressure to avoid using e.g. GNU/Linux.
> 
> I'm sorry, but I don't think Operating System Wars is anything to do 
> with Internet Governance.

Governance is always primarily about ensuring some kind of fairness.

In the case of Internet Governance, if that isn't about fairness in
internet communication, what else is the goal of Internet Governance
supposed to be? Protection of "Western" economic dominance at the
expense of others, while giving just enough aid and concessions to
"developing" nations that they don't rebel???

I find your choice of words interesting in referring to "wars". The
metaphor of a "war" implies the presence of some kind of violence.
Isn't the kind of violence which is present here precisely the
refusal of fairness with regard to openness of interfaces?

Consider the example of bread. In itself, bread does not have anything
to do with any kind of ethnic conflict. But if in any place, bakers
and shopkeepers refuse to sell bread to members of a specific ethnic
group, then these bakers and shopkeepers become a party in an ethnic
conflict. If the people who have a governance role refuse to consider
it part of their responsibility to act in response to complaints, are
they truly fulfilling their responsibility?

I think that the situation is very similar when reasonable requests
for openness of interfaces are refused.

Greetings,
Norbert
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