"Fragile" Consensus

[Carl Malamud <[e-mail]>]

I've been hearing some very strange undercurrents on both this list
and in private conversations.  I was under the impression that the
IETF plenary approved a plan that we could all live with.  None of
us like all the pieces, and frankly I wouldn't mind changing every
single element.  However, people ranging from Vint Cerf,
Lyman Chapin, Phill Gross, and others in the leadership to populists
like Marshall Rose, Jeff Case, and Bill Simpson all stood up and
supported the compromise proposal.

Isn't it time that we pull together and make this fly?  It is very
easy to sit back and be a critic, but I can guarantee that if one
faction opens up one point of the package for line edits, everybody
else is going to do the same.  That doesn't mean that we can't tune
what we have, only that we shouldn't be changing the elements that
there we had agreement on.

Either we have a workable proposal on the table, in which case we
should do it, or we don't.  If we don't, we should sit back down
and, starting from scratch and come up with a real proposal that will fly.
Frankly, I'd just as soon see *anything* get put in place that will
move us past the point of crisis.  We can then sit down and charter
a real group to do a long-term solution.  Remember "now, soon, ongoing"?

As Marshall said, "it is time to restore that lost sense of community."
We've reached a level of political intrigue and infighting that is
totally inappropriate for a group this size and this technical.  Can't 
we just get back to work?  Can't our leadership just get behind this
compromise and move us back to a stable situation?

Carl