Re: [Internetgovtech] Transition to the web

[Miles Fidelman <[e-mail]>]

John C Klensin wrote:
> Miles,
>
> I think what you (and a few others) are losing track of is that
> there is both a legal contract and social contract involved in
> this.  The latter has existed much longer, long before ICANN
> came in being.

John,

Thanks for the thoughtful note.

I guess I'm just a bit more jaded about the strength of the social 
contract in the face of shifting legal contracts and economic 
considerations.  Yes - the Internet operates, and operates pretty well, 
because of a web of social contracts and conventions - but.... my 
perception is that there has always been a near-invisible hand that 
enabled and supported the social contracts - right back to the days of 
the initial RFCs.  If it weren't for the gentle, and sometimes not so 
gentle hands of the early DARPA and NSF program managers involved in the 
early days (and NASA, and DoE, ...) we could easily be living in a world 
of balkanized networks, and/or a world much more like that of the telcos 
and cable companies.

In the early days, it was a matter of key personalities, some of whom 
controlled everyone's funding,  that framed the cooperative governance 
style that has evolved for what has become global infrastructure 
(personally I give a lot of the credit to Bob Kahn, during his tenure as 
ARPANET PM, and Vint Cerf for the notion of transitioning IETF to ISOC 
stewardship).  And, of course, John Postel, when it comes to what's 
become IANA.

I'm a little less sanguine about how things might develop, now that the 
early players are getting a bit long in the tooth, and large pieces of 
both the network infrastructure and its supporting organizations have 
become "big business."  And, of course, we have the growing focus of 
government regulators entering the fray.

I see the NTIA contract as sort of the last legacy of a guiding hand 
that has nurtured and protected the social contracts that keep the net 
"working."  And I see the transition as an opportunity for a lot of 
things to go wrong - whether by intent (traditional regulators getting 
their nose into the tent, repressive governments doing their things, 
business interests doing their thing) or accident.  All going on in 
parallel with the wranglings over "network neutrality" work their way 
through the FCC and the courts.

I worry that the sentiment of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" doesn't 
recognize that something really is shifting in the framework that has 
shaped Internet governance to date - and if we're not careful, a few 
years down the road we're going to be wringing our hands about details 
that we should have worried about today.

I think it behooves us to lift up the hood and understand, in detail, 
the interplay between legal contracts, social contracts, and general 
understanding and cultural conventions - as we go into this transition.

Regards,

Miles Fidelman




-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra