Subject: MAJOR ISSUE: "Concentration of power"

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 08:08:34 -0700

>Firstly I believe that this issue, in somewhat different words, is
>covered in the draft.

I don't think that the establishment understand the problem yet.

There are two concentrations of power. Within the IETF there is an
establishment that effectively controls the whole process. Outside the IETF
there is a group of vendors and open source hackers who effectively control
what goes into the applications people use.

There is almost NO overlap between the two power concentrations.

This situation is simply not stable, particularly given the behavior of the
establishement of late. 

>Secondly, the IETF isn't structured as a democracy. 

The IETF is structured to maintain an imbalance of power in favor of the
establishment, power that they would otherwise not hold.

The IETF was functioning up to the point where the people with the
application deployment power lost confidence that the establishment was
prepared to act as a partner.

Five years ago there was an advantage to allowing the IETF establishment to
act in the way it did. The Internet market was highly competative and it was
better to allow the IETF establishment to control the process rather than
risk power falling into a competitor's hands.

Today the situation is very different. Control of a standards process by a
competitor is now a much lower concern than a standards process that is so
slow that the standard never makes it to market. So the incentive to put up
with arbitrary actions by the IETF establishment is gone.

>Finally, there have been quite a few appeals. Apellants I can remember
>without searching are Dave Crocker, Dan Bernstein, Dave Perkins,
>Bill Simpson and Robert Elz.

Lets take a look at some,

Dan Bernstein - This appeal was over the posting policy to the DNSEXT
mailing list, apparently a perenial problem area. The appeals statement does
not give any confidence, it does not address the substance of the complaint
at all. Instead it merely states that the IAB is confident that the proper
PROCESS has been applied and that Bernstein was able to RAISE HIS CONCERNS
with the ADs.

This statement illustrates what is wrong with the IETF appeals process. It
refuses to address the substance of any complaint.  That is why I and others
have zero confidence in it. The process appears to be nothing more than a
sop to avoid aggrieved parties resorting to littigation.

Bill Simpson - The remarkable fact of the IAB appeal is that it actually
accepts almost all the substantive points raised by Bill as fact but refuses
to act on them in the particular. 

What I am seeing here is chopped logic, similar to that I see from the
USPTO. Challenge the USPTO over the award of an obvious patent and you get
back 'that is what the rules say, obviuous has different meaning', challenge
the public interest in awarding obvious patents and you get back 'patents
must not be obvious'.

I get the same feeling reading this thread. The appeals process is held out
as the solution to all ills. Then when we get down to specifics we find that
it is so narrowly focused that it will refuse all appeals on the merits of
the case and focus only on whether the process was or was not followed.

This means that the appeals process is completely useless as a
counterbalance to a process that allows WG chairs and ADs to do whatever
they like.

		Phill