Subject: Re: What exactly is an internet (service) provider? (FWD: I-D ACTION:draft-klensin-ip-service-terms-03.txt)

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 14:13:02 -0400

For those who have been interested in this discussion, a new
version of the draft has been posted.  It incorporates, to the
extent to which I could figure out how to do so, comments on the
list and some very specific suggestions from a few people (see
acknowledgements).

As the document indicates, and as has been said on this list, it
is pretty easy to slice and dice this along a whole series of
dimensions and by differentiating among issues that, while
potentially important, are comprehensible only to experts.  So,
if you are going to read it and comment, I suggest (and request)
that you try to adopt the perspective of an end-user, regulator,
or legislator who is easily confused by, and impatient of,
details.  

If we have managed to design (or back into) a network design
with sufficiently many combinations of options that the
knowledge level of the readers of this list are required to
understand a service offering, that is probably a problem.  But
it is not a problem that any document like this can solve.

     john

Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-klensin-ip-service-terms-03.txt
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 10:10:26 -0400
List-Id: i-d-announce.ietf.org

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.

	Title		: Terminology for Describing Internet Connectivivy
	Author(s)	: J. Klensin
	Filename	: draft-klensin-ip-service-terms-03.txt
	Pages		: 11
	Date		: 2004-7-2
	
As the Internet has evolved, many types of arrangements have been
   advertised and sold as 'Internet connectivity'.  Because these may
   differ significantly in the capabilities they offer, the range of
   options, and the lack of any standard terminology, has cause
   considerable consumer confusion.  This document provides a list of
   terms and definitions that may be helpful to providers, consumers,
   and, potentially, regulators in clarifying the type and character of
   services being offered.

A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-klensin-ip-service-terms-03.txt

To remove yourself from the I-D Announcement list, send a message to 
[email-masked] with the word unsubscribe in the body of the message.  
You can also visit https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/I-D-announce 
to change your subscription settings.

Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP. Login with the username
"anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address. After logging in,
type "cd internet-drafts" and then
	"get draft-klensin-ip-service-terms-03.txt".

A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html 
or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt

Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail.

Send a message to:
	[email-masked].
In the body type:
	"FILE /internet-drafts/draft-klensin-ip-service-terms-03.txt".
	
NOTE:	The mail server at ietf.org can return the document in
	MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility.  To use this
	feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE"
	command.  To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or
	a MIME-compliant mail reader.  Different MIME-compliant mail readers
	exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with
	"multipart" MIME messages (i.e. documents which have been split
	up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on
	how to manipulate these messages.

Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the
Internet-Draft.
_______________________________________________
I-D-Announce mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i-d-announce
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 06:15:00 +0900

John C Klensin;

You made, at least, two mistakes, minor and major ones.

A minor mistake is that you think you can let people outside
of IETF use your terminology, if you give loose enough
terminlogy.

As you introduce "Web connectivity", such people (including
mobile operators in Japan) claim that they are ISPs, because
they are offering web connectivity over X.25 without IP. That
is, "The definitions proposed here are clearly of little value
if service providers and vendors are not willing to adopt them."
is applicable to your draft.

A major mistake is that you are forcing people within IETF
use your terminology even though you are fully aware that
"some members of the IETF community that some of these
connectively models are simply "broken" or "not really an
Internet service"".

						Masataka Ohta

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 17:22:11 -0400

Ohta-san,

We have been through this before.  There is no issue of
"forcing" - this is being proposed because some people think
they would find it useful.   Everyone else will presumably
ignore it.  If it turns out that there are, in practice, none of
the former, then the document will presumably go the way of many
other ideas that didn't get any traction.

Vendors who are going to do these things will -- based on the
fact that they are being done already -- do them, with or
without this document.  And that includes providers who are
doing very little that we would recognize as "internet service"
characterizing themselves as "ISPs".   If this document can
accomplish anything, it is, as several people have pointed out,
provide a definitional basis for claiming that a vendor is lying
about what is being provided.  Put differently, the theory
behind it is to give operators/providers an opportunity to
disclose what they are doing in a more or less clear way.  If
they choose to exaggerate what they are offering, or to lie
about their services, that is a problem that this document
cannot solve and is not intended to try.

regards,
      john

--On Wednesday, 07 July, 2004 06:15 +0900 Masataka Ohta
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> if service providers and vendors are not willing to adopt
> them." is applicable to your draft.
>

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 21:47:16 +0200

>cannot solve and is not intended to try.

John,
This is quite ambitious to say "lying". Let say that it permits to say that 
a word is not used in John Klensin's way - may be not in an IETF ways. This 
permits to understand why, what is different, what are the con and pros. To 
have a reference is always a good point.

We are starting AFRAC as an experimental national Common Reference Center. 
The target is to understand how such center may support interapplications, 
contain metastructural risks, support dedicated governance and 
intergovernance relations, etc.  Masataka Otha's remark is quite 
interesting, since it shows that he doubts that non-IETF community members, 
while members of the Internet Gobal community may not use some words in the 
same way, or should not ne encouraged to use them. Obviously not sharing 
the same referential creates confusion. (IMHO we are at the core of the 
networking notion - thank you for the initaitive I called for for years).

I am going to use your draft as an "IETF reference lexicon". We will see if 
someone wants to translate it as several concept may differ in French or in 
other latin languages (I do not know about other langages).

Is that label agreeable to you?
Are you interested in continuing building on it when new words are 
questionned?
jfc

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 20:33:53 -0400

--On Wednesday, 07 July, 2004 21:47 +0200 "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> doing very little that we would recognize as "internet
>> service" characterizing themselves as "ISPs".   If this
>> document can accomplish anything, it is, as several people
>> have pointed out, provide a definitional basis for claiming
>> that a vendor is lying about what is being provided.  Put
>> differently, the theory behind it is to give
>> operators/providers an opportunity to disclose what they are
>> doing in a more or less clear way.  If they choose to
>> exaggerate what they are offering, or to lie about their
>> services, that is a problem that this document cannot solve
>> and is not intended to try.
> 
> John,
> This is quite ambitious to say "lying". Let say that it
> permits to say that a word is not used in John Klensin's way -
> may be not in an IETF ways.

No, I actually had a different case in mind, and the
clarification may be useful.   I used "lying" above to described
an intentional act, e.g., "we know the definitions say we a
doing 'A', but we will advertise 'B' in the hope of tricking
people".  Those who are not aware of the definitions, or decide
to ignore them entirely, are in other categories.  As I have
said before, only a government --typically a regulator or
legislature-- can make _any_ terminology mandatory, so there is
no question here of "forcing" (to repeat Ohta-san's term) anyone
to do (or not do) anything.  Definitions can also be written
into contracts by saying things like "X will be supplied, where
'X' is as defined in..."; such definitions may be more or less
useful depending on circumstances that are of more interest to
lawyers than to an engineering group.

> This permits to understand why,
> what is different, what are the con and pros. To have a
> reference is always a good point.

If I correctly understand your comment, we are in agreement.

> We are starting AFRAC as an experimental national Common
> Reference Center. The target is to understand how such center
> may support interapplications, contain metastructural risks,
> support dedicated governance and intergovernance relations,
> etc.  Masataka Otha's remark is quite interesting, since it
> shows that he doubts that non-IETF community members, while
> members of the Internet Gobal community may not use some words
> in the same way, or should not ne encouraged to use them.
> Obviously not sharing the same referential creates confusion.
> (IMHO we are at the core of the networking notion - thank you
> for the initaitive I called for for years).
> 
> I am going to use your draft as an "IETF reference lexicon".

Please do not.  While you are welcome to use it, it is, at the
moment, only _my_ reference lexicon.  Not even the people who
contributed significantly to the document are responsible for
it.  And, indeed, I'm not completely happy with all of the
definitions and categorizations: they are just the best I could
do with a limited amount of time and effort.   Characterizing it
as an "IETF reference" anything requires some evidence of IETF
community consensus.  That may or may not exist, but, under IETF
principles, only the IESG can reach a conclusion on that subject.

> We will see if someone wants to translate it as several
> concept may differ in French or in other latin languages (I do
> not know about other langages).

This might be very useful.
 
> Is that label agreeable to you?

See above.

> Are you interested in continuing building on it when new words
> are questionned?

To an extremely limited extent, yes.  The limits are imposed by
my conviction that something like this is not going to be useful
unless it is quite stable.  So addition or modification of basic
terms should be completed quickly or not at all.  One could even
make a case for trimming everything but the basic categories out
of this document and then producing a second, more informational
one, that identified the two collections of additional terms.
Personally, I don't think that is worth the effort and the added
confusion it would cause -- anyone actually using these
definitions can divide them up as they find useful.

regards,
    john