Subject: [hrpc] open standards, proprietary closure, and the "non-core" protocols

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:40:22 -0400

Hi,

Laura DeNardis said something interesting in reply to me at the mic
today, and it caused me to get up again, but we were running out of
time.  But I think there's an important fact that we need to keep in
mind here.

Basically, the problem of open standards adoption is that of
incentives.  On the Internet, you can't actually force anyone to do
anything.  You can only give them the incentives to do things that you
want.  This is because it's a network of networks, and such a system
actually has no central point of control where you _could_ force.

So, in her remarks about examples like proprietary Internet payment
systems and "Internet of Things" protocols, there is a serious problem
in that people appear to be buying proprietary protocols.  (I might
suggest that the issues around several social media networks are just
the same: many of them are really closed protocols that happen to run
over the Internet instead of being part of the Internet.)  But people
are _choosing_ those proprietary systems, because that's what it means
when GiantMedia has 1 billion users and LightSwitchCo is selling to
people who install that switch.

The problem here, in effect, is the same one that the Free Software
advocates faced for many years (and mostly continue to face in
consumer-directed systems).  I believe that open protocols are much
better, but if people are willing to buy a device that only implements
proprietary protocols, it doesn't seem like there's much we can do
about that except make better alternatives.  And they've got to be
better in the sense that product makers prefer the interoperating
standards over their closed examples.

It therefore seems to me that the problem here is not protocol
considerations, but consumption considerations: if you value the
ability to use open systems, you should prefer them when buying.  Just
as you wouldn't buy a car that could only take the manufacturer's
special fuel, you shouldn't buy an Internet-connected device tht can't
talk to any other kind of device, either.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Shane Kerr <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:00:05 +0200

Andrew,

At 2016-07-20 10:40:22 -0400

> talk to any other kind of device, either.

This seems a higher-level point than this research group is addressing,
but maybe not?

I mean, it sort of sounds like: "How can we design protocols that
convince people to deploy them?" 

This is especially difficult since vendors have goals that are
opposite of openness: vendor lock-in is a bonus, access fees are a
great source of revenue, consumer control is a problem to be solved, and
so on. 

As I say, this sounds like a general IETF (or wider) problem, not
necessarily a human rights issue.

Cheers,

--
Shane

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 08:18:56 +0200

Hi Andrew,

I think this is a bit off topic, but there are as I see it two issues:

  * Part of this is that we are in a maturity cycle for many Things in
    which the product makers need to get to market, and do not have the
    time or money to invest in standardizing the functions they have.  I
    see this in several areas, and usually this works for them until it
    doesn't, and it doesn't when enterprises wish not to be locked in. 
    Some of the Things we are talking about do have long lifetimes, and
    so it may take a longer time for this to run its course than in
    previous iterations.
  * The consumer market is different: here the vendor actively has
    incentive to NOT come to SDOs, not simply due to the cost of doing
    so, but because they end up having to address interoperability
    problems that could lead to device malfunctions.  In the case of
    certain classes of devices, safety would be involved, aside from the
    simple desire to lock the consumer into a brand.  Running against
    this current is the promise of some sort of horizontal integration,
    but anyone who has worked on home networking knows that it is more
    promise than anything else (with some small exceptions).

That isn't to say there's no interoperability.  Your home gateway has
all sorts of standards information on the box.  Not so much yet your
Internet doorlock, and certainly not an Internet enabled toy.

Eliot