[discuss] CSTD report/survey on the hundreds of places Internet policy is being worked on

Sun Dec 7 17:04:59 UTC 2014

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Hiya,

On 07/12/14 15:59, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> FYI, comments on the draft report, and any submissions or
> amendments to the database below referenced will be taken by the
> CSTD for another week or so at cstd-wsis10 at unctad.org

Sure. I skimmed the "database" PDF and the written report.
Seems like a good start.

I see some minor errors and omissions but those are details
and not that important. For example, there's a huge amount
of work being done in the IETF on constrained environments
that mostly doesn't use the IoT marketing term directly. I
still think that's a detail though, as there'll be a swathe
of work on whatever's the next fashion in a few years. (Not
that all IoT is fashion, but some is.) So I don't think this
exercise needs that much precision to get going towards
something useful - that can happen over time and will be
continually changing.

Overall though I think the report/"database" does seem like
a fine argument that there's no real "orphan" problem - in
fact my experience is that as new issues arise, a plethora
of (hopefully) short-lived organisations spin up to tackle
those issues, do some stuff, then bits of work migrate to
more stable long term places (e.g. w3c, ietf, ieee, etc.) or
if the issues are addressed and done with those consortia or
whatever dissolve themselves. And sometimes they evolve
into long-lived useful things themselves. All of which are
ok things to happen.

(As an aside, I figure we really have more problems when such
things outlive their usefulness without them having adapted
to the inevitable changes that occur over a few years. I'd
quote M3AAWG as one such that does appear to be morphing nicely
to deal with changes in the real world, but I'm biased there
as I'm a little involved with 'em. I won't give an example
of anything mentioned that I think has outlived its usefulness
but we probably all have our favourites there:-)

But I also agree with the comment that there are probably
some localised or more ephemeral (from my pointy-headed
engineer approach:-) topics that aren't identified in this
version of the report/"database." For example, there's a
bit of discussion started within the IRTF about human
rights and protocol development. [1] I've no idea tbh where
that activity might lead, but it's got some good folks who
are involved so who knows.

So, I'd say a good thing to do would be to try find a way
to get a usefully editable version of this online so that
anyone can do edits, figure out how to handle the inevitable
spam and graffiti problem that'll happen and then we'll be
a long way to dealing with the actual co-ordination issues.
There will of course be a bunch of folks who'll claim we're
not done on the basis that they enjoy all this governancing
stuff, but I figure we should still just do what's needed
regardless:-) I could even imagine just doing that work on
wikipedia who could already be well setup to handle just
this kind of thing.

Lastly, but less importantly as its just terminology, I also
dislike the term orphan for the reason stated by Joe. In
addition, at lesat in the IETF context, it's common that
someone turns up with an "issue" that is really not a single
sensible thing to address in that context. "Cloudy" stuff
is probably the most recent painful example. In that case,
there were eventually a bunch of bits of work for the IETF
to do, but there's no "cloudy" working group. So the fact
that someone considers that an issue is not being addressed
may also be due to them not properly considering whether their
supposed issue is really better handled as one thing or as
many, possibly in different places. That might e.g. tie back
to how the report here doesn't identify the dice or core
working groups in the IETF as being involved with so-called
IoT, when in fact they're fairly important to a lot of folks
working in that space.

Cheers,
S.

[1] https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/hrpc

> On 25 Nov 2014, at 13:37, Nick Ashton-Hart
> <nashton at internet-ecosystem.org> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Carlos,
>> 
>> Orphans certainly do exist at the local level, which is an
>> argument for an Agenda 21-type approach to development at the
>> local, national, and regional level.
>> 
>> I’ll have to leave comment and work on those things to others: I
>> only deal with things happening in the international system and
>> in particular those being actively worked on in Geneva. :)
>> 
>>> On 25 Nov 2014, at 07:33, Carlos Raul Gutierrez
>>> <crg at isoc-cr.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear Mr. Ashton-Hart!
>>> 
>>> Thank you very much for this extensive "gap"analysis, but
>>> please keep us posted on any list of DOMESTIC internet policy
>>> issues you may come across as well. Global internet policy
>>> lives an interesting life between Los Angeles and Geneva. After
>>> 10 year of UN involvement in the Internet sphere, many orphans
>>> remain and happen to be very local indeed, as the many "GAPS"
>>> of the document  "appears to indicate", without even speaking
>>> of access pricing, last mile competition or lack thereof,
>>> monopolies, duopolies, bottlenecks and private or public
>>> network investment so necessary to prodie universal access.
>>> 
>>> Best regards
>>> 
>>> Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez ISOC Costa Rica Chapter skype
>>> carlos.raulg +506 8335 2487 ________ Apartado 1571-1000 COSTA
>>> RICA
>>> 
>>> 2014-11-25 5:54 GMT-06:00 Nick Ashton-Hart
>>> <nashton at internet-ecosystem.org>: Dear all,
>>> 
>>> I know we all get overloaded with reports to read, but I
>>> thought I’d highlight one that is really worth the time.
>>> 
>>> The CSTD WGEC started the effort to map the many institutions,
>>> organisations and processes were policy with an Internet
>>> dimension is being addressed; the CSTD Secretariat has taken
>>> that effort and built upon it, releasing a report that will get
>>> discussed at the CSTD this Thursday.
>>> 
>>> The report - "The mapping of international Internet public
>>> policy issues [Advanced Version]” is here:
>>> http://unctad.org/meetings/en/SessionalDocuments/CSTD_2014_Mapping_Internet_en.pdf
>>>
>>>
>>> 
The database is here:
http://unctad.org/meetings/en/SessionalDocuments/CSTD_2014_Mapping_InternetDatabase_en.pdf
>>> 
>>> This makes clear that there really are no ‘orphan issues’ but
>>> there is clearly a coordination problem; I know there are quite
>>> a few on this list who have seen this for a long time and as a
>>> Geneva-based policy person I’ve been a victim of it myself for
>>> the last 8 years ;)
>>> 
>>> Regards, Nick
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________ discuss mailing
>>> list discuss at 1net.org 
>>> http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>> 
>> 
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>> http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 
> 
> 
> 
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