[ga] Re: [ALSC-Forum] are there Internet Users or Internet Participants ?

[Stephen Waters <swaters@amicus.com>]

On Thu, 2001-11-15 at 07:25, Jefsey Morfin wrote:
> 
> The Internet is the consensus of its participants to interconnect their 
> domains in using the TCP/IP protocol set under the IP addressing and naming 
> plans; the Internet governance is the common management of this consensus. 
> This is at least my reading of it.
> 
> So there is no "Internet User": users are the users of the interconnected 
> domains and of the agreed services. Interconnected domains participate 
> (interconnect) in building the global system. This is a peer to peer 
> system. Until recently it was linking groups of physical machines (hence 
> the word "domain") and now more and more indeferently of physical machines, 
> virtual systems and people.

Indeed, I often think of myself as supplying content to others (email,
telnet access, conversation (IRC, instant messaging, etc.), website
(complements of a free dynamic DNS service), etc.). It's wholesale
dishonesty to imagine the Internet as push technology ala television.

Even as labor is a product I sell to my employer, services I provide to
others on the Net are also products that I produce. It just so happens
that I don't think any of them are worth enough cash value to justify an
attempt to sell them. :-)


> from Telcos, IBM/DEC networks, etc...Vint, Alejandro, Karl may event no 
> really have a "meshed network" thinking due to the very old zone oriented 
> routing system. 

Karl knows what's up. Don't doubt him here.

> Open Roots people are only more in advance, but by nature 
> they think "meshed network". The only one adapted - in part - to the 
> distributed architecture are New.net (and only in part). The problem is 
> that there is a complete cultural divide between these three thinkings: 
> star, meshed and distributed networks. 

Yes and no... I suspect the real problem is ISP unwillingness to drop in
another line in their DNS configuration to use alternative roots or
perhaps just ignorance of alternatives. If some entrepreneuring
alternative root convinced AOL to use their service in addition to ICANN
and put up a few links on the homepage, other ISPs would shortly follow
suit. After all, it's a simple way to tell your customers "hey, we just
gave you access to another part of the Net, all for FREE!" or "we just
made accessing all of the Net easier for you" or similar.

After google caches it, critical mass for alternative root support is
only a matter of time.

 
> Domain Name :
> s) an organized label that can be priced and resold
> m) a service to the registrant which can be decided upon and freely rated
> d) the name of someone's property - life long, non reellable, free, cost of 
> use charged.
> 
> UDRP
> s)  a centrally decided and pre-judicial promoted procedure
> m) a complexity to avoid is possible
> d)  the DNS users clarification of  an inappropriate mnemonic

I'm not sure if I agree with your categorization here. You still have
litigation possibilities no matter how you look at it...  but hopefully
elimination of artificial scarcity for TLDs, SLDs, etc. would make
litigation simply pointless except in a few specific instances.

e.g., Madonna should be able to get a name for
http://madonna.whateverTLD, but if there are enough TLDs, it won't
matter if Tom, Dick, and Harry all have madonna.TLD1, madonna.TLD2, etc.
As long as the content on the site doesn't pretend to be *the* madonna
site, it shouldn't matter. Chances are, google's pagerank is gonna pick
out the right one anyway.

but, if your domain name is a published haiku of a well-known author, I
don't think you should be surprised if you get sued. :-)  so, best to
change it up a bit into a parody or derivative, but original work!
 
> The bylaws, the Staff system, etc are star oriented.  One has to understand 
> that no system is better than the other: they are just resulting from the 
> current social thinking and behavior and from the source code.

I disagree. They each solve different problem sets based on different
numbers of participants, different types of participants, different
goals, etc. Thus, I think you have to use the best tool for the problem
set. Which is, of course, the distributive model.

If you disagree and want to say it's because we each view the problem
set differently, then I would agree, but with the caveat that a
non-distributive perspective on the Internet is not the Internet. The
perspective simply lacks the proper data or intelligence to come to the
proper conclusion.

All in all, good work Jefsey,
-s

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