[governance] Bloomberg - The Overzealous Prosecution of Aaron Swartz

[Louis Pouzin (well)]

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 7:44 PM, John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org> wrote:

> [snip]
>


> Similarly, I do not consider that structures used for governance of
> critical Internet resources (e.g. name and number identifiers) to be
> inherently superior simply due to the particular circumstances of origin.
>  In fact, I completely discount the origin and simply consider the
> structures on their demonstrated merits and weaknesses
> (i.e. good ideas are good ideas regardless of origin)  The bias towards
> the status quo is not a ringing endorsement of the existing structures, nor
> a heartfelt belief that the structures must be superior because of US
> origin and exceptionlism, but simply reflect the reality that there is an
> existing functional system which has enabled the growth and success of the
> Internet to date, and *an absence of any alternative described in
> sufficient detail to be demonstrably superior.*
>
> FYI,
> /John
> - - -
>

This *final argument *is customarily used to discard methods or
technologies carrying the potential to derail, disrupt, replace, .. some
older ones considered as proven, and usually feeding strong vested
interests (read lobbies).

Were automobiles superior to oxcarts, roads superior to railways, airplanes
superior to airships ? Surely not when they were first engineered.

Lobbies never have enough details when the real issue is to defend their
turf. Thus we should not worry too much about such a tactic.

Critical internet resources are names, numbers, routes, and now data. The
internet scale has outgrown its 40-year old design. Overpatching is not a
solution, it just increases complexity.

There is not much improvement to expect from revamping existing structures,
they have plainly revealed their limits. It's time to think of manageable
components and build on subsidiarity.

Cheers, Louis.
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