Re: [ga] Letter from ICANN to New.net

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2001 at 02:33:49PM -0700, William S. Lovell wrote:
[...]
> being expressed. What is being said by Mr. Crispin, and the positions
> being taken by this "protocol community," are based upon business
> interests, not technology.

Nope.  They are based on technology.

[...]

> > Right.  Medicine doesn't exist for the benefit of doctors.  But if
> > doctors tell us something is a bad idea, we generally listen.  If we
> > got practically universal agreement among doctors that a procedure was a
> > bad idea, we should almost certainly dump it.
> 
> Again, the analogy doesn't hold.  There is no "practically universal
> agreement."

Yes, among knowledgable protocol designers, there is.  You apparently
don't hang out with such people. 

> > The problem is protocol engineering really is a species of "rocket
> > science"* -- it takes a long time to really understand the issues.  And,
> > despitewhat you hear, most of the participants on these lists really
> > aren't rocket scientists of the proper variety.
> 
> So IETF presumes to speak for these non-rocket scientists?

Don't be silly.  The IETF speaks about protocol matters.  It is not 
speaking *for* you or anyone else.

> Not for
> me.  The problem with a group such as the IETF (to whom several
> years ago I had begun to look to for expert guidance, but then gave
> that up quite rapidly when I saw what it had done and was doing)
> is that it becomes an in-grown cabal of "right thinkers," for whom
> "right" more often has a business than a technological origin.

That simply illustrates your own lack of knowledge, I'm afraid.

>  My
> profession lies in determining what technology will work, and what
> will not, and when are things being done for technological reasons
> and when are they not.  I have learned not to depend on the IETF
> for anything.

I look forward to the cessation of your use of email, then, since the design 
of the email protocols came straight out of the IETF...

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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