Re: [Ianaplan] control and negotiation (was Re: draft-ietf-ianaplan-icg-response-02 working group last call)

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2014 at 03:16:38PM +0000, Milton L Mueller wrote:
> Miles's argument and logic seem unassailable to me. 

Really?  Ok, let me assail them.

> > -----Original Message-----
> > 
> > My point exactly.  Given that this is a community process, the content of
> > which is primarily organizational, legal, and contractual in nature; should not
> > the IAOC, IETF Trust, and the lawyers be heavily involved in this discussion;
> > not brought in after the fact?

The IETF Trust has nothing to do with this, yet, because despite what
some people keep saying there are, as yet, no assets for the Trust to
control.  The plan is to ask that there be no copyright on the
contents of the registries -- public domain -- so the Trust doesn't
have anything to hold.  And by my reckoning, there is as yet no
consensus to ask for iana.org or the IANA trademark.

The IAOC _is_ participating here, since Russ (by virtue of his
position as IAB chair) is on the IAOC and has said some things.  I
haven't looked at the list membership to see whether there are others
on the IAOC who are paying attention to this discussion.

"The lawyers" is not a very big class (last I checked, Jorge is still
one person); and anyway, we normally do not involve the IETF Counsel
directly in the terms of discussion until we know what problem we
think we're solving.  I also know that some members of the IAB have in
fact asked for specific advice on specific topics, so it's not like
the work is proceeding without any guidance.  But we need to know what
we want before we ask for legal advice, I suggest, and it's not clear
to me that everyone is yet pulling in the same direction, even
roughly.

> > Treating this proposal as an engineering issue, addressed in the way that
> > we'd address engineering issues, IMHO, is broken.  There are a whole slew of
> > issues that are central to this process that some wish to deny, others wish to
> > ignore, others feel are out of scope, and that we are largely unequipped to
> > address (yes, some of us work more in the policy and regulatory worlds, and
> > some of us negotiate contracts at times - but we're all primarily amateurs --
> > at least I don't think we've had any lawyers in the discussion).

Certainly there are issues that some people keep claiming are central
to the process; whether they are central _for the IETF_ seems not to
be quite so obvious.  I resent the suggestion that those of us who
disagree either "wish to deny" or "wish to ignore": it could be that
we just disagree with those who think they're central.  For my part, I
have in fact thought about these issues for some time, and there are
things that people keep saying are central that I believe to be
distractions.  The most obvious of these is, I think, the IANA
trademark and iana.org domain name, which I regard as nice to have but
by no means central.  There are also claims about oversight and
assertions of authority that I simply don't believe in: I think the
only reason the IETF's stuff is "the standard" is because people
believe that.  It's like fiat money.  Claiming that there's a
government behind it is what people do, but that's not what makes the
money worth anything.  Ask people in Argentina.

> > Again, IMHO, this will ultimately lead to an ineffective proposal to the ICG,
> > and to poor results down the road (for some value of poor).

I guess I don't know what an "effective" proposal to the ICG is.
Perhaps I could be enlightened.  If it's just another word for, "One
that asserts all the aforementioned authority," however, then I think
that's a persuasive definition of "effective".  

The only poor results that I've heard forecast so far have two types:
1. someone else gets iana.org and publishes a "competing" registry;
2. people (perhaps governments) try to assert some other locus of
control of protocols and standards.  Have I missed anything?

On (1), I think it would be bad but, as I have already argued (so
won't rehearse), there is nothing we could do about that if it
happened.  

On (2), we already have this problem -- indeed, have had since TCP/IP
was being conceived -- and the way that we continue to be successful
against such things is to produce standards that interoperate better,
that are easier to implement, and that are widely accepted and used.
There are certainly annoyances -- the fact that IETF standards are not
"official" means that in some countries they can't be referred to in
procurement documents.  We should doubtless undertake efforts to solve
that, but the only way that we'll be successful is co-operatively with
the relevant governments.  Governments who _don't_ want that will
always find some excuse, and we can't do anything about that except
produce something that is so much better than the alternative that
everyone wants to use it.

> > At the very least, should not the IAOC, IETF Trust, and the lawyers be directly
> > informing this discussion by providing guidance, review, and comment to the
> > larger group, as we move toward a final proposal?  

See above.

> Right now, we're
> > debating things like the handling of iana.org

No, right now some people are militating for us to assert a unilateral
right to an asset of a corporation.  I don't need legal advice to
understand whether that is a reasonable position to take.  It _does_
seem to me that perhaps the current holder of those assets may have an
opinion on it, which is why it is worth asking about on this list.

> >, whether it's important to
> > include reference in the proposal

Sorry, I don't understand this.  Which reference?

> > , and what kind of contractual language to
> > use 

None.  Our charter says, "The WG will identify, but not create, such
required agreements."  Also,

  Fully documenting the interaction between the IETF and the operator
  of IETF protocol parameters registries may require detailed terms of
  agreements or other details of procedures that are normally delegated
  to and handled by the IAB or IAOC. The working group will not attempt
  to produce or discuss documentation for these details, but will
  request the IAB or IAOC to provide them separately.

This is precisely the point Alissa was making about the request to the
IAOC that is in the current I-D.

Assailingly yours,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]