Subject: [Wpack] Alissa Cooper's No Objection on charter-ietf-wpack-00-07: (with COMMENT)

From: Alissa Cooper via Datatracker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2020 09:31:37 -0800

Alissa Cooper has entered the following ballot position for
charter-ietf-wpack-00-07: No Objection

When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to all
email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to cut this
introductory paragraph, however.)

The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-wpack/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENT:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

"* A low likelihood that the new format increases centralization or power
imbalances on the web. See discussion of this in
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-escape-report/>"

Unlike the other goals listed, it's hard to see how this is actionable. Will
the WG make design decisions differently whether this is in the charter or not?
If this working group were designing a system architecture or a protocol with
an architecture that implied relationships prone to centralization would need
to be created or strengthened for deployment purposes, perhaps this would be an
appropriate goal. But the scope here is to specify a format that will be used
in the context of the existing web with all of its existing centralization and
power imbalances derived from the economic properties of the businesses
operating within it. To me, stating this goal is sort of like saying we'll try
not to throw kindling on a forest fire that is already propelled by gale force
winds. We can say we'll do that, but what actually happens won't be determined
by whether we do it or not.

---

From: Jeffrey Yasskin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2020 12:06:12 -0800

> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-wpack/

One particular design decision that this goal affects is whether
publishers can't (the current proposal), can, or must specify a list
of distributors who can redistribute their signed packages. Picking
"must" in particular would encourage centralization in redistributors.
There are some upsides too, of course.

It's possible that the economic properties of the existing internet
are so large as to make irrelevant any choices this particular format
makes, but Adam and Barry seem to disagree. It's also possible that
this goal is so "motherhood and apple pie" that we don't need to say
it explicitly. I'll certainly keep paying attention to it regardless
of whether it's in the charter.

Jeffrey