[ga] John Perry Barlow: This is not what Postel wanted

["Mark C. Langston" <skritch@home.com>]

Wired news is reporting on the etoy.com/etoys.com battle, and John
Perry Barlow's position within it (co-counder of the EFF, now on
the etoy Crisis Advisory Board, along with the Chairman of InfoSeek
Japan, and NPR commentator Douglas Rushkoff).

Barlow is quoted as saying, in regards to current domain name
disputes:

"If John Postel were alive, he'd be in tears," Barlow said. 

                     "He was a very principled, decent man. He knew that
                     the spirit of fairness was best served by a policy of
                     first-come, first-served. It wasn't served by a policy
                     of 'who has the largest and meanest legal firm wins.'
                     He also made a sincere effort to abstract names of
                     companies in the real world from domain names,
                     because domain names are not like trademarks. They
                     are different than trademarks. "




The article goes on, but read it for yourself.

A dose of a different opinion than those who insist on waving Postel's
name around here as a blessing on all that happens within ICANN.

For those of you as fed up with this as I am:  We should actively
attempt to get Barlow, the EFF, and the rest of the eoy.com supporters
engaged here.  Perhaps if the working groups were stuffed with those
who want to change the Net for the better, instead of being top-heavy
with corporate interests, something good could come of this.

-- 
Mark C. Langston
mark@bitshift.org
Systems Admin
San Jose, CA