Appeal to the IESG Concerning the Way At Large Internet Lead Users Are Not Permitted To Adequately Contribute to the IETF Deliverables (JFC Morfin; 2008-09-10) - 2008-09-10
Appeal - 2008-09-10
APPEAL TO THE IESG
CONCERNING THE WAY AT LARGE INTERNET LEAD USERS ARE NOT PERMITTED
TO ADEQUATELY CONTRIBUTE TO THE IETF DELIVERABLES
BY JFC MORFIN
Abstract
The mainly analytical approach of IETF does not appeal to most of the
@large Internet lead users who might otherwise volunteer there, because
these users prefer a more systemic approach that would be more in line
with their global daily experience and their expectations of a very
short implementation time until full and real operations. This means
a fully imbricated innovation, documentation, and experimentation mix
which the IETF does not support today, trusting instead to external
innovation (RFC 3935).
The question posed to the IESG and IAB by this appeal, at the occasion
of a typical case, is to obtain a formal answer from the IETF stating
whether it is interested in considering the opportunity of such a mix,
and if so, how, or whether it is not, so that it be developed
elsewhere.
.
Acknolwedgments
I hope that this appeal will be helpful to the IETF and to the Internet
community. I wish to thank all those who contributed to it and
especially Vint Cerf, Lisa Dusseault and Russ Housley who took the time
to discuss the question with me (of course an appeal should properly be
against them, but this one certainly is not). I will not name anyone
else since this is an appeal, but the IESG is to know that it is the
outcome of positive contribution from a relatively large number of
people and that it was proposed for review by an even larger number via
several distribution lists.
Contents
- Preliminary note
1.1. Respecting the rules
1.2. Rules out a class of contributor
1.3. an IETF adaptation could address the issue
1.4. An adaptation which seems necessary to the IETF progress
- The need for an ML-DNS as a back-ground case
2.1. WG-IDNABIS
2.2. Questions to the Chair about the operational target of the WG
deliverable
3.3. Blocking point, root of this appeal
- Positions obtained during the preparation of this appeal
3.1. WG-IDNABIS Chair: Vint Cerf
3.2. Application Area Director: Lisa Dusseault
3.3. IESG Chair: Russ Housley
3.4. Comments
- APPEAL
4.1. First: over rigidity
4.2. Second: over disregarding the users needs
4.2.1. I object to the concept of "another venue" outside of
the IETF.
4.2.2. This is why such an @large oriented "other venue" should
be organized within the IETF.
4.3. Third: over inconsistency with the IAB request for sponsoring
- The expected return from this appeal
- Preliminary note
This appeal is not an appeal against anything. It is an appeal to raise
a question and to obtain an answer. It supports no particular
contribution and is not in opposition to anyone's position. To the
contrary, it fully respects the positions of the Members of the WG-
IDNABIS, of its Charter, of its Chair Vint Cerf, of its AD Lisa
Dusseault and of Russ Housley the IETF Chair.
1.1. Respecting the Rules
It is precisely because it respects these positions, which fully
comply with the IETF rules, and because it is believed that every
member of the IETF community will agree with them, that it can
raise the problem that certain stances do not permit the IETF to
plainly fulfill its RFC 3935 mission "to produce high quality,
relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the
way people design, use, and manage the Internet in such a way as
to make the Internet work better."
This appeal starts from a case that concerns a fundamental issue
for the necessary multilateral evolution of the Internet in order
to address the diversity of our globally distributed world:
multilingualization of the semantic namespace and any multilingual
version or usage of the DNS (named here ML-DNS).
It turns out that the perfect respect, by all the concerned
parties of the IETF rules, leads to a situation where a certain
class of contributors are prevented from informing the IETF of the
impact on the matter being discussed by their WG of their own
parallel exploratory work in the same area but from a wider and
systemic perspective.
1.2. Rules out a class of contributors
This class of contributors is the class of the Internet lead
users, who are also called "@larges" in Internet jargon. This is
because that class of contributors does not have the same working
method and language, time to implementation, financial sponsoring
and motivations as their other fellow Members of the IETF. As a
result the IESG Chair himself, when contacted as part of the
appeal process, regrets not being informed of that work and being
subsequently confused about it.
This case exemplifies that the IETF, which "has traditionally been
a community for experimentation with things that are not fully
understood, standardization of protocols for which some
understanding has been reached, and publication of (and refinement
of) protocols originally specified outside the IETF process" (RFC
3935) should adapt to the evolution of the Internet, and possibly
revise its core values, if it is to continue helping the Internet
work better.
1.3. An IETF adaptation could address the issue
This adaptation consists in accepting that the design, usage, and
management of a global complex system such as the Internet must
also be approached on equal footing and in a systemic manner, and
not exclusively via the RFC 1958 analytic engineering manner (and
thereby along its principle of constant change).
The claim is that usage must be given, through the Internet lead
users' contribution (@large) and other possible contributions, its
full place within the Internet architectural process, with its own
characteristics and human, technical, societal, economic,
cultural, ethical, political, democratic and polycratic, legal,
educational, linguistic, etc. concerns, rights, and constraints,
either within, or in adequate relation with the IETF in order to
not split or balkanize the Internet's very structure, while the
world evolves towards the people centric information society that
was consensually declared by the WSIS (World Summit on Information
Society) where we sorely missed the IETF's participation.
1.4. An adaptation which seems necessary to the IETF progress
This appeal seeks to make acknowledged that the adaptation of
Internet to world evolution must proceed from an iterative
concerted process of standardization, experimentation, and
innovation, along the same commonly concerted network
architectural model. This means that new protocols must be
specified as much as possible at the outset within an innovation
integrated adapted IETF environment if we want a complex
multilateral and semantic Internet that works better.
- The need for an ML-DNS as a back-ground case
From the inception of the WG-IDNABIS proposition I was uncertain about
the IETF target while as an "@large" Internet lead user, I want, and
need, the kind of Multilingual Internet that will uphold the form of
people-centric Information Society which the WSIS has consensually
declared. The core of such a deployment is a true "ML-DNS", that is a
non-predetermined open DNS solution to be analysed, discussed,
documented, tested, and deployed that will guarantee the same or better
QoS, in every script and language, just as the DNS does for ASCII and
English.
2.1. WG-IDNABIS
Either this is the immediate or future target of IDNA, i.e. either
IDNA is a step ahead in this direction aiming, minimally or
plainly, at allowing International English access to foreign
language sites and e-mails, or IDNA is for me a pure strategic
waste of time such as documented by IAB in RFC 3869.
In the second case, however extremely late, IDNA is to be
perceived as an ML-DNS first/default fully interoperable option.
This means that the ML-DNS development must be rushed in in
parallel by the IETF or, if we are in the latter case, as an IGF
emergent issue that is clearly out of the IETF scope.
In every case, we need a clean, simple, robust, and stable
IETF/WG-IDNABIS IDNA as soon as possible.
2.2. Questions to the Chair about the operational target of the WG
deliverable
This is why I asked several other @large users to join the WG-
IDNABIS to help to expedite its process. In order to consensually
identify the IDNABIS target we prepared and circulated, among
usage oriented and IGF mailing lists, a set of questions that we
would pose to Vint Cerf (Chair of the WG-IDNABIS).
His, and the WG-IDNABIS, response was clear. The WG-IDNABIS does
not aim at delivering the ML-DNS solution that we need through any
form of planned evolution, either now or in the future. Its only
target is to describe a better version of IDNA than the one that
was criticized by the IAB RFC 4960. However, it could create a
specialized mailing list in order to explore the ML-DNS concept.
Experience shows that @large cannot afford to discuss the ML-DNS
in an IETF way: we just want to use one, whoever specifies it,
including ourselves if no one else wants to do it. In that case,
for us this means trying to work it out, in our own lead users'
way.
Therefore, I first reported to the WG in June that we will strive
to keep our ML-DNS project IDNA compatible. In particular, we will
use the same ISO 3166 basis for country, script, and language name
codes, and the very LS 640 Open Source Table that is the basis for
ISO 639-6, which is yet to be published. This way we will stay
compatible with other ML-DNS gouped or individual efforts that
contacted us though our http://ml-dns.org site.
2.3. Blocking point, root of this appeal
On July 11, Vint Cerf asked me to stop referring to ML-DNS the way
that I did in my second mail on this engaged work.
At 13:28 11/07/2008, Vint Cerf wrote: "ML-DNS is not the topic of
this Working group. Whatever it may be it is not part of a
relevant argument for any particular parsing of IDNA documents.
Please do not continue to send emails about ML-DNS on this list."
- Positions obtained during the preparation of this appeal
I objected and indicated that I intended to appeal against this demand.
I, therefore, communicated with Vint Cerf as the WG-Chairman, Lisa
Dusseault as the AD and Russ Housley as the IETF Chair. Their positions
are as follows:
3.1. WG-IDNABIS Chair: Vint Cerf
"The purpose behind charters of WGs is to limit their scope and
allow the WG to focus on its work. ML-DNS is NOT within the
IDNAbis charter. The methods of IETF say you need to establish
visible interest in your topic, e.g. through a BOF at an IETF. If
there is sufficient apparent interest, then you can find an Area
Director to support the work and develop a charter which will have
to be agreed by the prospective working group participants and the
IESG. If you don't want to do those things you can try to find
another venue. Asking the IESG or the IAB to overturn the scope of
a WG makes no sense, given the basic rules of operation of the
IETF, in my opinion."
3.2. Application Area Director: Lisa Dusseault
"If you want to participate in some other activity with the IETF
aegis, you are welcome to drum up participation around your
proposed activity. You can start a mailing list for ML-DNS and
draft a WG charter or submit Internet-Drafts. If you want a more
formal organizational relationship with the organization
responsible for ML-DNS and the IETF, I informed you that the IAB
is in charge of liaison relationships. None of these are dependent
on any action from me, I believe. The first two are entirely
within your hands, and for the last one you need to contact the
IAB."
3.3. IESG Chair: Russ Housley
"The IETF has a clear process for new work projects. You have
approached the Applications AD and been told that the IDNAbis WG
is not the place for the work you propose. You have also been told
that a demonstration of a constituency for the work and a
demonstration of people willing to do the work is necessary. I do
not see anything in your note that demonstrates either one of
these. Your claim that the ill-defined ML-DNS work is needed is
not sufficient justification for anyone else to do the work. I
suggest that a BOF is the best way to demonstrate that there is
(or is not) a constituency for the work and demonstrate that there
are (or are not) people willing to do the work."
Comments
All these answers go along the same current IETF line: although
you cannot do it and do it another way, you are most welcome to
care about our common stuff with us and in our own way. This is a
positive attitude, but we need a step further towards
interworkability.
I acknowledge that if I were a paid employee of a large Internet
stakeholder, I might follow this advice, possibly gather a small
WG, travel the world to attend a few IETF meetings, propose a
score of Drafts, publish within three to four years a few RFCs
documenting a solution that could deploy over the coming two
decades. However, like hundreds of Internet lead users with a
certain technical understanding of usage needs, and therefore, if
non concerted, of a certain technical nuisance capacity, I am not
a paid employee of a large internet stakeholder, yet I am a
network reality.
This kind of documentary approach is necessary, however its
efficiency without a internal innovative impulse seems to be
reduced if one considers the reality test.
For example, all these response and the comments received from
IETF participants considered that they needed a Draft on ML-DNS
before being able to discuss it with others and decide if there
was any interest in it. They had real difficulty understanding
that ML-DNS is not a recipe with a single Draft but a target that
can change the whole internet, such as several small teams have
been discussing and testing it within the ICANN ICP-3 Part 5
framework that implies a virtual authoritative root file. We are
not trying to convince anyone of its need but are trying to avoid
proposition conflicts between impatient people and to render their
R&D strategies complementary. Four visions have already been
suggested:
- multilingual domain name support
- multi-ledger domain name system
- multi-localisation digital name scalars/system/support
- markup-language for decentralized naming security
To illustrate the difference in proceeding as compared to IETF:
after having considered these visions (without too advanced Drafts
rigidifying them into propositions) and how they can fit in with
my own semantic addressing reflection, I hope to suggest a
simplified syntax that could support all of them, including the
current DNS namespace, as a wiki page where other visions will be
able to proceed in parallel and to try to maintain systemic
interoperability.
- APPEAL
This is why my appeal aims to address three separate issues.
4.1. First: over rigidity
I agree that ML-DNS is not a part of IDNA because it seems obvious
that IDNA is a part of any ML-DNS work, as an option to the whole.
I disagree that the rigidity of the IETF Charter genuinely
prevents the WG from considering the consequences of some parallel
work by some of its members, on the issue of interoperability and
the future usage of what it is working on.
Comment:
This is why the way in which I discussed our ML-DNS work was
obviously not to make it specified by the WG-IDNABIS, but
rather to make sure that the IDNA as specified by the WG-
IDNABIS could be interoperable with any future formulation of
any ML-DNS by any working group inside or outside the IETF.
4.2. Second: over disregarding of the users' needs
These WG-Chair and AD positions seem fully in line with the IETF
process at the WG and Area levels. The comment that was made by
the IESG Chair clearly considers the practicalities of the
possibility of a new task to be performed in an unpredictable
future, along an IETF process, rather than our engaged work that
aims at the start of deployment before the end of the year, and
which may be within a perspective that may differently engage the
evolution of Internet usage. However, in the meantime:
- the IETF is not sufficiently addressing our users' needs, not
even in the most simple way that we and the WSIS expressed
them.
- these needs are not considered as important or urgent enough,
after eight years without a proper answer, to adapt the
Internet standardization process to so as to enable the
contribution of lead users
- the direct and indirect impacts on the Internet of an ML-DNS
that is contributed by the users are not evaluated as making
it worthwhile to consider interoperability at the IDNA design
stage as is the case with Unicode.
- we ourselves do not have the time, resources, interests, nor
competence to productively engage in an IETF process : we
will not have the time, resources, interests, nor competences
to engage in an external and formal IETF relation
establishment and continuation process at the IAB level. We
can however proceed at the specialised WGs and Draft
publication level and possibly at a usage architecture level.
This means that the issue is to be addressed by the IESG and IAB.
This justifies an appeal to have it be publicly considered and
answered, because "The IETF is always in a state of change." (RFC
4677).
Comments:
4.2.1. I object to the concept of "another venue" outside of
the IETF.
A ML-DNS technology creep is probable. Our evaluation shows
that a smooth transition towards a full Multilingual and
Semantic Internet may be obtained through:
(1) complete revamping of most of the Internet building
blocks along a new architecture like GENI might be doing.
(2) or what we identify as an iterative evolution between
usage experience and infrastructural progress. This is what
Google is currently organizing in a private industrial manner
as a consistent user oriented system. This is what the
Community punctually did with NATs, and what IETF tries to do
with IDNA: making user level applications/middleboxes to
patch architectural lagging.
As a lead user, I consider things from a usage necessity
perspective: the diversity of the more or less coordinated
ways of surviving and a better use of the "as-is" Internet by
each of the 6.5 billion of us, based on our "multi-consensus
and living mode". From a user point of view, solutions and/or
problems come from the IETF along with many other aspects
that may conflict with them, which the IETF is never
interested in learning. The IETF Cartesian RFC 1958
analytical approach does not sufficiently consider the
Internet as a system (or it only does so in a network-centric
manner).
For a user, the Internet is a global system to be considered
in a people-centric way. This is why we are not interested in
re-engineering the Internet building blocks, one by one, and
cannot bear the costs and delays that this represents within
the IETF. We just want be able to use them as some of the
parts of a much more global and complex ever evolving system.
This being said, we have no practical problem in creating
this so-called "other venue" in order to document the better
ways to use the digital convergence, multilateral
stabilization, and semantic emergence that the ML-DNS is to
support. However, we fully realize that if we are to do this
as an interim replacement for the IETF without agreeing on
interoperability and technical return for the IETF, this may
either lead to a waste of effort, an alternative technology
source, or a technology balkanization if others do the same
in an effort to address the same imperatives.
We, also, have no specific problem in reporting our work
through Drafts in an IETF form, but this is not our priority
when compared with our current research and development
effort. Especially if this leads to drastic changes in the
vision of the same Internet and leads to debates that we
cannot sustain in a foreign language.
4.2.2. This is why such an @large oriented "other venue"
should be organized within the IETF.
It would bring about the Information Society's "people
centric" paradigm (WSIS declaration). In 1986, IETF was just
that: the gathering of the Internet users community of the
time to make their common network of networks work better.
Today, this community includes billions of people with their
own networks on the network of networks. This community needs
to organize itself one step further, in an appropriate
manner.
Such an appropriate manner consists, most probably, in:
- maintaining a stable yet adaptive Internet ontology of
reference
- being documented by complementary and closely related
special interest groups
- working on a multi-consensus basis, i.e. detailing the
interoperability between the various consensuses that
may exists.
- being interested in:
- what the Internet is used for
- the ethical obligations resulting from its
technology
- how they are technically met
- which global architectural model is used
- being permanently "inter-tested" together with their
intergovernance solutions, based on community agreement
defining how the internet can be used as its own
operational test-bed.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art 27, 1:
"Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life
of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific
advancement and its benefits". I think this could also be an
advisable technical R&D management guideline.
4.3. Third: inconsistency with the IAB request for sponsoring
The WG-Chair and AD positions are justified due to the possibility
that "another venue" could liaise with the IETF at the IAB level.
I perceive the imposed implicit condition ("If there is sufficient
apparent interest [in the IETF, not among lead users' volunteers])
and the lack of formal support in establishing this liaison ("you
need to contact the IAB") to be in contradiction with IAB's RFC
3869.
Comments
The motives that @large Internet lead users have in
contributing to the Internet Research and Development as non-
commercial volunteers are the same as those that are
expressed by the IAB in its RFC 3869 along with the desire to
assist the community with all of the extensive experience
that they may have acquired.
"In our current challenging economic climate, it is not
surprising that commercial funding sources are more likely to
primarily fund research that leads to a direct competitive
advantage." (RFC 3969) They want to balance business centric
commercial funding with their unpaid time and non-commercial
funding to the advantage of people centric autonomous usages
and to protect them from potential unethical commercial
creeps.
"The principal thesis of this document is that if commercial
funding is the main source of funding for future Internet
research, the future of the Internet infrastructure could be
in trouble. In addition to issues about which projects are
funded, the funding source can also affect the content of the
research, for example, towards or against the development of
open standards, or taking varying degrees of care about the
effect of the developed protocols on the other traffic on the
Internet." [RFC 3869] The principal thesis of this appeal is
that lead user contribution is a broad source of expertise
and innovation that the future of the Internet could very
well depend on and should not be excluded but rather a
complement of the number, methods, traveling capacity, and
technical culture of the commercially funded participants.
"While it is theoretically possible for there to be too much
funding for Internet research, that is far from the current
problem. There is also much that could be done within the
network research community to make Internet research more
focused and productive, but that would belong in a separate
document." (RFC 3869) The intent of this appeal is to obtain
a formal IETF position so as to foster Internet research and
innovation in a more focused and productive manner.
- The expected return from this appeal
This appeal is to ensure that IAB pursues its RFC 3969 request for R&D
funding while considering what "practical expertise funding" by
dedicated innovative people can contribute in addition to the "money
funding" that it gathers with difficulty. The IESG and IAB answers will
then be the so-called "separate document" above.
Their response will state how the IETF wants to adequately welcome the
help offered by Internet lead users.
This means respecting rather than banning them, trying harder to
understand what they are saying, accepting their language diversity as
a world reality to be technically supported, learning the
specifications of the deliverables from them that they and common users
expect, interactively advising the way they build, use, enhance, and
operate the real Internet, taking advantage from common inter-testing
that involves real life network user communities and WSIS originated
governance. This real life context imbricates a great many usages and
constraints that in turn impact the Internet as well as its technical
needs which the IETF currently disregards. The expected result here
would be to permit more demands for adequate and diversified IETF
solutions to hit the market in time in order to be accepted and
deployed more easily and broadly.
Their response may alternatively explain how they want to adequately
liaise with an @large Internet lead users "other venue" and accordingly
assist it to thereby deploy.
Their response may also disregard this offered assistance. This will
result in a separate "other venue" that will have to separately engage
in ML-DNS documentation, deployment and governance with all the
architectural creep that this engineer/user, analytic/systemic,
English/Multilingual, unilateral/multilateral dichotomy would
necessarily imply and against which I have fought for years but would
then have to accept, respecting the IETF IESG/IAB decision.
Jean-François C. MORFIN
jefsey@jefsey.com