Re: from Ira Magaziner Re: IETF relationship to new IANA

["Perry E. Metzger" <[e-mail]>]

Thomas Narten writes:
> Whether or not Ira can be trusted (say, for instance, because one
> believes he is evil because all politicians are evil)

I'm not saying politicians are necessarily "evil". I'm saying it is
foolish to believe anything they say. There is a difference.

In the course of just this one battle, the various minions of the
administration have changed their tune more often than a band playing
a medley. One would be silly not to pay attention to experience.

> is beside the point. The fact remains he is an very important player
> in what is going on right now.

One wonders why, of course. I mean, so far as I can tell there is no
legal basis for his involvement. It appears that he's decided to
insert himself.

> One can either attempt to engage constructively, or take action that
> might well be perceived as openly hostile (and make things *much*
> worse). There are no guarantees with either approach, but rest
> assured that once the latter approach is taken, the first option is
> no longer an option. Looking at the big picture, which option would
> appear to have better odds of resulting in a positive outcome?

I am not merely being cynical when I say this: if you pretend you can
negotiate as an equal with a high level politician, you have already
lost everything. You believe this is "constructive engagement". From
my perspective, this is "pretending you are even remotely in their
league". They'll chew you up and swallow you before breakfast and
never even notice they've done it.

Attempting "constructive engagement" basically means surrender. None
of us is capable of negotiating effectively with these people, and we
are utterly fooling ourselves if we believe we are. We're
TECHIES. These are people that have survived for their entire working
lives in a shark pool. Natural selection has placed the guys who can
live in that world on top. These are people as skilled at manipulating
people as we are at writing C code. We can't deal with these people on
their own terms -- we cannot win that game. We have to deal with them
on *our terms*.

The major chance we have is that we do not *have* to negotiate with
them. I'm not suggesting hostility. I'm suggesting carefuly and calmly
explaining "thank you, but no thank you. We prefer to decide the
future of the way we assign protocol numbers or standards or anything
else we deal with on our own, by our own peculiar methods. We've been
self-governing for decades, and we are happiest that way, and until
such time as someone presents us with a court order, we'll just stick
to what we know."

If Ira Magaziner wants to dictate our governance, let him pay his fee,
show up at an IETF meeting, and talk in a POISSON meeting just like
anyone else. That's an environment where we understand the rules.

> > The man has created an enormous amount of chaos for our community,
> > sowing uncertainty and fear into a self governance process that was
> > largely working just fine. If this was by design, he's a deadly threat
> > both to the functioning of the internet and to our autonomy. If this
> > was by accident, he's dangerous simply because he doesn't understand
> > what he is doing and has great power to cause destruction without even
> > realizing it. Either way, I do not see any reason for faith or trust
> > in the man.
> 
> Fine.  You don't trust the man. However, it does not follow that
> attempts at constructive engagement should be abandoned.

What would "constructive engagement" consist of?

We're a legally constituted entity. He has no legal basis to dictate
to us. If a government agent came up to your home and told you that
henceforth he was running your family, would you say "well, lets
negotiate this" or would you say "could you please show me your legal
authority here?"

If we "constructively engage", it will be a matter of years before
federal appointees run the IAB and IESG (can't have that chaotic
NOMCOM running things -- after all, they aren't controlled by the
white house) and decide who can and can't do what in the IETF.

May I remind people that we do not believe in voting or kings? That is
not the IETF way.

Perry