[discuss] Anything specific? Was: Re: IPv6 Deployment and IG

Mon Dec 30 16:49:06 UTC 2013

On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 12:53:45PM +0100, JFC Morfin wrote:
> you keep asking this. I fully architectonically answered it. i.e. in a
> way that you should best understand and innovatively contribute and
> respond as an IETF leader.

I confess I didn't understand your answer.  Also, I find it incredibly
hard to read your email since it's always HTML only, so I have to work
around all the formatting cruft in there.  You could send
multipart/alternative to make it easier for those of us who don't use
HTML mail readers; I would appreciate it.

> - saying that there is no need for a technical governance can only means

I don't think anyone is saying that, though.  If one takes the meaning
of "governance" broadly, then we have things like the RIRs and the ARO
and the ICANN procedures and so on, and what I have been asking is
what _more_ is needed there.  Your message here (and your previous one
I didn't understand) offers me no direction for the answer to that
question.  (If we take the meaning of "governance" to be outside those
activities like what RIRs do and so on, then we have a semantic
question, and we still have open the question of what more needs to be
done.)

> the parameters, but the interrelations of the authorities which establish
> or use them.<br><br>

I think that's an interesting question, but one that is potentially
descriptive rather than presciptive; and I think "governance" is
prescriptive.

> (1.1.) you will not be told any particular things that people <u>want</u>
> to see changed.

This is a requirement for a cure without a statement even of symptoms
of a disease.  See below.

> (1.2.) you will never have <u>proposals</u> for things to be changed. You
> will have:<br>
> - either analysis (like mine) to tell you where analysers think the
> people reported problems come from (and you will most probably have
> different analyses to compare). 

In this case, I would like to have an analysis I can understand.

> - or information on works engaged by &quot;lead users&quot; following
> some (or a synthesis) of these analyses.

Please, a pointer, then.

> Where we need mutual governance it is to prevent confusion. 

[…]

> could still be uncompleted in my thinking. I am therefore obliged to
> convince those who will help me and use my deliverables, showing them
> that my vision is correct. We are back to &quot;running code&quot;. This
> obliges to a perpetual enhancement.

But what "governance", _more than_ what we already have, is necessary
for this?  It seems to me your example is possibly evidence the answer
is "none": you can get the code points you need, and you can get the
co-ordination you need by publishing Internet-Drafts, and in a
smart-edge system that's everything you need.

Many of the apparent fans of "more governance" don't actually seem to
want that sort of freedom.  They seem instead to want to ossify the
network to ensure that it can't evolve more, because a static target
is one that is easier to control.

> It is up to you/us (technical - political solvers) to translate it in
> things to correct and to propose solutions.<br><br>

But that is preposterous if, when I ask for more details, nobody will
answer.  Except in deficient polities, we do not make laws for the
sake of it.  We make laws to attempt to address specific issues.  When
someone proposes a new measure, the question is quite correctly what
that measure is supposed to address.

If I go to the doctor and I say, "It hurts," the doctor asks me for
specifics: how much does it hurt, where, how long has it been going
on, and so on?  I am not asking people to diagnose themselves, but to
say _something_ about what their problem is beyond, "We need this
solution."  Indeed, if I went to the doctor and said, "Give me a
prescription for Lipitor," the doctor would be quite correct in asking
about things that made me think I needed Lipitor.  Similarly if I
asked for a prescription for morphine.  We do not expect to go to the
doctor and say, "This is what I need."  We expect to describe
symptoms.

Why should this case be different?

> </b>i.e. the lack of users' post-Snowden trust in the technology, hence
> in its engineering.and therefore in its governance's capacity to provoque
> the necessary research, normalization, development, validation and
> deployment strategies. 

Maybe not.  If the issue is "lack of trust" then what we need are
measures that will cause the technology to be trustworthy _somehow_.
Governance may be one way to achieve that.  On the other hand,
governance mechanisms are as easily abused as anything else: Arthur
Andersen was a key part of the governance of Enron.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com