[ga] Follow-up on Marilyn, Lary and Bill

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Dear Marilyn,
Yours and Lari's inputs are certainly the most interesting posts of the 
day. Bill concerns show also the problem.

Basically your three main ideas are:
-  technical ideas cannot be separted from market ideas
-  let learn from history
-  we want to talk of things which do not belong to the iCANN

Lari suggests the scientific community as an exampe/model to study. I think 
there is another one he would enjoy too working on. It 
is  significant/relevant and I happen to know quite well. I am certainly 
ready to help about a better common uderstanding as the only few other of 
us who had the chance of a complete vision of it.

This is the Minitel case.

As you know the Minitel is in use for 25 years by 90% of the French 
population, it was celevrated by Judge Green and Al Gore as their model to 
push for the Web. As Tymnet Inc. we ordered hundred of thousands of
Minitel for the USA in the mid-80s. We had ports in test operations in NY, 
SF, Houston, etc.. and developped a very powerfull smart proxy machine 
concept for its support. Then we reviewed our US project, changed the 
teams, priorities, business plan, aggreements with French industry and Gov. 
I gave it a last try in 1985 and killed it on marketing grounds.

There are many lessons to dig from this. The first one is what Lari says. 
In such large system involving all the population (the coverage is what the 
nets may be in five years in the USA) there is no more real difference 
between producers and consumers. As the technical part importance fades 
away: everyone takes it for granted. As everyone takes for granted the 
electricity or the telephone. The success of the provider is to disapear. 
The success of the system is when everyone master it.

- the content is of the essence and the first content provider is from 
eveyone  through the mail system

- the "technical/providing people" are actually the most interesting users 
because the are smart users: they identify the needs that can be solved 
before the others, due to the hysteresis of the market (habits, fashions, 
need of education on new usages).

- there is still however a huge difference of concern between people using 
the system and people operating a service in term of preoccupations. But 
this has nothing really technical. It is financial, administrative, user 
relations, business, legal, tax, etc... But as far as the Minitel is 
concerned interests are quite the same.

- this also means that most of the innovation come from independant users 
transformed into or already a techie (FYI there is not yet such a think as 
a Minitel Protocol and there are many compatibility problem  among 
different Minitel manufacturers).  Very much as GNU, but on a smaller market.

- there is a senecence of the system. The Minitel is now an old 
system,because of the Internet. But we known it 20 years ago and we worked 
on it. Louis Pouzin and Cyclades is the technical cofounder of the 
nets.  Ask Elisabeth the connections she managed in 1987...  I developed a 
realtime, multiuser Minitel OS in 1987 with fax support, search engine, 
mark-up language and hyperlinks and I got public (Gov) support for AI 
addition to it. It has been in operations for 15 years (there may still be 
a few machines around). Just to say that technical community had a vision 
and support.

- we build a sophisticated legal, structural, professional 
environement.  We created the word "Telematic" for it as we quickly 
identified issues which were not dependent from the Minitel usage, and 
which apply today to the Internet. Obviously in a French legal approach, 
both more administrative and more officially "mutually free". But the 
Internet may change name ... we will not have to review everything.

- today the Minitel continue to develop in some areas even in front of the 
Net due to the ... digital divide. Obviously the Net has not yet the 
simplicity people need. However the evolution of the Minitel, Telephone and 
Minitel continuation in the Telephone area, are very often though  by 
professionnal bodies, Gov. as a continuation. The dialog between Gov, 
providers, users, manufacturers is constant. Ask Michel Baujard as a 
professional content association President, or Elisabth as AFNIC. Nothing 
is perfect, IMHO it is too much rigid and too mauch "only French", but we 
have worked out over 20 years a lot of structure, experience, integration 
into he social/legal life.

- as an US network I was unable to get a simple response from France 
Telecom: has the Minitel a global positive financial return. What they 
tried to sell me were the machines, the control, (as the iCANN with TLDs). 
What we wanted was a business, an usage. Obviously the product was social 
first not for us.

- Also we found that the real interest of the Minitel was daily proximity 
services. Geographical proximity and personnal proximity. Its avantage was 
a simple screen.  Automated simple functions. MS understood that. Netscape 
browser is too sophisticated.

- we also developped network models. I used the T/ES model integrating the 
nets into reality (users, structures, market, education).


What conclusion? We could disuss that for years, but I would say:

1. let the iCANN give us a break. The success of the iCANN is when no one 
cares anymore about it. When it works, period. Let have the technical 
manager for the root on board andless e-legal issues. Let DNSO include IUC 
(induivudal users), IDNHC (individual DN holders), SMEC (small 
entreprises), DNSDC (DNS innovators), automate chairing and respect the 
bylaws. That will be OK.

2. give us a vision: what will be the nets 20 years from now. So we may 
aggregate to a common rewarding effort. Fridge screen is far more important 
to us all than DNS unless DNS is used as a Trojan Horse for political or 
commercial interests. Let work on IPv6 with the ones concerned: i.e. eveyone.

3. provide us a focalpoint: the French Minitel had the French Gov. involved 
a lot. On the internet the USG is to remove itself. As a  small service to 
the technical operators the iCANN is a focal  point of some sort. Let it
offer that service to all. Nothing grandiose people would resent. Just a 
hub, a central place for people/needs to   meet.

4. let stop splitting. A network is by nature a whole,  geographically, 
technically, socialy. Splitting network concerns is splitting the network. 
There are layers (SO, @large, etc..) but there should be no divides.

Sorry for being long and abscond in Frenglish (but for once it was a local 
flavor for the subject).
I hope it may help.

Jefsey

On 19:48 27/05/01, Cade,Marilyn S - LGA said:
>I've been thinking that some of what "we" want to talk about really doesn't
>belong at ICANN at all, but that there a lots of interesting, bright, and
>involved people who are interested in ICANN, but really want to also debate,
>or socialize ideas bout non-ICANN areas.... digital divide; privacy on the
>net in general, security of applications/communications, etc.
>
>I think, like William, that there may be some models which we could look at.
>I am not holding up any examples, since I am searching. Your ASCAP and BMI
>examples are interesting ones. Some might suggest ISOC; others might suggest
>some of the other more technically oriented ... groups... but the point is
>that we should see if we can learn from any of them , and from the other SOs
>about what might work...
>
>Thanks, William, I enjoyed reading your post, and it made me think more...
>
>Marilyn
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: William S. Lovell [mailto:wsl@cerebalaw.com]
>Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 1:43 PM
>To: Cade,Marilyn S - LGA
>Cc: ga@DNSO.org
>Subject: Re: [ga] 305 Voters
>
>
>
>
>"Cade,Marilyn S - LGA" wrote:
>
> > William, might it also be that many users of the Internet think that it
>just
> > works, and they are busy running their personal lives, and their
>businesses,
> > and they want to take Internet operations for granted?
>
>Marilyn:
>
>That's really it in a nutshell. Also, the GA attempts to do stuff in the
>wrong
>place. The problem is that the GA is supposed to be a technical advisory
>body on domain name issues, where technical expertise is indeed necessary,
>but the GA more often falls into the process of carrying out what the
>"at-large" group would do, if there were such a thing. The attempts by
>Younger and Corliss to get things focussed on the actual "charter" of the
>GA by way of the mailing lists, instead of being a place to vent every gripe
>known (along with beating up the other guy, etc.), creates yet another
>thing to gripe about, and the real business gets lost.
>
> > For instance, I often speak to busienesses through trade associations
>about
> > ICANN. Most of the executives and managers whom I brief usually say:  glad
> > you are paying attention; think that our association staff should. Now, I
> > have to get back to work. Give an update in about 3-4 months, won't you?
> >
> > I'm struggling to think about other organizations and how they have
> > developed "representative democracy".  I think it deserves some more
> > thoughtfulness.
>
>I gave the examples some time back of two organizations that are run quite
>professionally and serve their own special public very well. One of these is
>the National Writers Union (free lance writers) and ASCAP (songwriters)
>-- for which there is another one -- BMI. (ASCAP and BMI are not exact
>parallels, since they are for profit, but the structure is similar.) What
>the
>National Writers Union has is local chapters, that have meetings and the
>whole schtick. Others that are massive and to which I also belong are
>the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the
>Advancement of Science. But these, of course, are directed at specific
>subjects (more or less) which constitute the actual professions of their
>members.  Except for registrars, ISPs, etc., "the internet" is not a
>profession, but a tool, and users thereof typically don't give a rip about
>the nuts and bolts: "can I get on line and get to where I want to go and
>send an email to whoever?" is the extent of their interest. It's like
>computers:
>
>who wants to know how the inside works, as long as it does? And
>why not? These people may be dentists or bankers or truck drivers, etc.,
>with their own professional and job concerns. So the bottom line question
>is what you said: can that kind of range of people be given an incentive
>to become involved enough to join in on something that would function?
>The bones of such a thing exist in ICANN, namely, the supposed "at-
>large," but there's no meat, and instead we have the GA playing at that
>role instead of doing its own proper function.
>
>An internet issue that should be of wide interest: your ISP gets bought up
>by megacorp #1 which in turn is purchased by megacorp #2, the service
>plummets, and although you are told that "you don't have to change your
>domain name," nevertheless a couple of months later you do -- what was
>once teleport.com became some other screwball thing, and then onemain.com
>(or maybe the other way around -- who can follow?), and on date X there
>will be no teleport.com addresses whatever, either you move (to the new
>thing, preferably!) or you're toast.  And never mind that you have a lot of
>time left on your annual contract.  That kind of thing might help generate
>some interest, but this whole "root" bit and a lot of the rest of it will
>never
>capture the fancy of the general public, which is why there are 305. The
>root thing is the right thing in the right place, but not something that
>will
>draw out a crowd. The DNSO/GA is not the place to do what a lot of
>the people in the GA want to do.
>
>(And actually this bit I should have put in ga-icann -- my mouse sometimes
>takes on a life of its own.)
>
>Bill Lovell
>
> >
> > Marilyn
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: William S. Lovell [mailto:wsl@cerebalaw.com]
> > Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 5:19 AM
> > To: ga@DNSO.org
> > Subject: [ga] 305 Voters
> >
> > Interesting who one sees there and who one does not.
> > Some people post but don't vote; quite a few more
> > vote but we never see them post. 305 people speaking
> > for millions. Amazing!
> >
> > Is it possible that the purported lack of any "bottom up"
> > operation by ICANN might arise because it has almost
> > no "bottom?"
> >
> > Bill Lovell
> >
> > --
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>--
>          Bill Lovell
>
>http://cerebalaw.com/biog.htm
>
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