Useless demagoguery (Re: what are the real problems)

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand]

Eric,

if, somehow, we came to the point where we split the IETF between "those 
who are on a mission to protect the users against exploitation by the 
vendors" and "those who are on a mission to help the vendors exploit the 
users", I'd reluctantly have to join the first camp.

Reluctantly, because I believe the dichtonomy to be entirely false and 
unproductive.

If we're going to have an useful IETF, it has to be based on some shared 
metric of what "good" is - and "exploitation by the vendors" (less 
demagogically - maximizing vendors' short-term profits at the expense of 
making the Internet a tool that is useful to the users) is certainly not a 
goal that I think we can get wide buy-in on.

[I happen to think that maximimzing users' benefits is critical to 
maintaining vendors' *long*-term profits, though - and that the marketplace 
is one, but not the only, critical part of the picture]

Now, can we stop this useless sniping about secret personal agendas and get 
back to talking frankly and honestly about what core values we want the 
IETF to be based on?

                     Harald

--On 22. mai 2003 10:01 -0400 Eric Rosen <erosen at cisco.com> wrote:

>
> It would certainly be interesting to  know exactly which of the IESG
> members think that they  are on a mission to protect  the users against
> exploitation by the  vendors.  Naturally, anyone who is  on such a
> mission  will think it very important to  replace the operation of the
> marketplace by his personal vision of the future, and will do whatever he
> can to purge the IETF of other views.   But let's not  pretend that  such
> an  overtly political  agenda has anything to do with technical quality.
>
> And people still wonder why the IESG is not trusted!