Subject: Re: IETF Last Call under RFC 3683 concerning JFC (Jefsey) Morfin

From: Grossman Dan-LDG004 <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 16:42:21 -0500

Let me preface this by saying that I have no direct interest in ietf-languages or LTRU, nor do I have technical expertise in this area.  I have also been on a temporary hiatus from active participation in IETF.
 
That said, I overcome my usual reluctance to engage in IETF list discussions to oppose this action.
 
Unlike the previous matter of an individual who clearly engaged in threats and ad-homenem attacks, this appears perilously close to being an attempt to suppress a minority viewpoint.   Minority viewpoints need to be heard, regardless of whether the minority is a minority of one, and regardless of how persistent and how (in)articulate the minority may be.  This does not mean that the chair cannot find consensus against the minority view.  However, it strikes me as an abuse of process to revoke posting rights because the majority is tired of hearing the minority opinion.
 
 Mr. Morfin has been accused of straying into "off-topic" postings.  I cannot judge from the examples presented whether this is the case. However, I observe that setting WG scope can serve a constructive purpose in allowing the group to maintain focus by avoiding peripheral issues, or it can be a way of biasing the agenda toward a particular result, of ignoring important issues or of suppressing dissent.
 
Having been both in majorities and in minorities over the past 20 years or so, I know that process protection for minority rights is frustrating to the majority.  I also recognize that the minority is sometimes right.  Patient negotiation, no matter how difficult or time consuming, is the best remedy.
 
I urge the IESG to give Mr. Morfin the benefit of the doubt.  
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 17:35:40 -0800

> Unlike the previous matter of an individual who clearly engaged in 
> threats and ad-homenem attacks, this appears perilously close to being 
> an attempt to suppress a minority viewpoint.   

There is a basic difference between preventing the expression of an opinion, 
idea or the like, versus preventing what is effectively a denial of service 
attack on the conduct of group business.

This difference is massive.

An organization like the IETF absolutely MUST encourage the former.  But it 
cannot survive any sustained amount of the latter.

Yes, one can no doubt construct all sorts of scenarios that are in a gray area 
between the two.  Therefore any group that is concerned about permitting -- and 
even encouraging -- the former, needs to make any rules against the latter 
involve scaling a significant hurdle.  In other words, the excesses that 
constitute a "violation" need to be huge.

It is difficult to imagine any reasonable person looking at the particulars of 
the current case and having even the slightest doubt that things are far, far 
beyond any possible gray area.

d/

-- 

Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 04:59:56 +0100

At 22:42 23/01/2006, Grossman Dan-LDG004 wrote:
>threats and ad-homenem attacks, this appears perilously close to 
>being an attempt to suppress a minority viewpoint.   Minority 
>viewpoints need to be heard, regardless of whether the minority is a 
>minority of one, and regardless of how persistent and how 
>(in)articulate the minority may be.  This does not mean that the 
>chair cannot find consensus against the minority view.  However, it 
>strikes me as an abuse of process to revoke posting rights because 
>the majority is tired of hearing the minority opinion.
>
>  Mr. Morfin has been accused of straying into "off-topic" 
> postings.  I cannot judge from the examples presented whether this 
> is the case. However, I observe that setting WG scope can serve a 
> constructive purpose in allowing the group to maintain focus by 
> avoiding peripheral issues, or it can be a way of biasing the 
> agenda toward a particular result, of ignoring important issues or 
> of suppressing dissent.

Dear Dan,
you are perfectly correct. But in this case I faced a "second level" 
case where an active minority made itself a majority, boring everyone 
out but m,e because I needed for my own business survival to impeach 
the market exclusive they were at building.

So, I faced a Unicode affinity group which managed to appear as the 
majority in presenting in the first WG-Chair's mail a complete Draft, 
ready for IESG LC (it just failed as an individual Draft - they 
thought that putting a WG stamp on it would be enough). Because of 
that, most of the possibly interested experts did not contribute, or 
did not join. I had been the most active in making the text fail the 
last call. I therefore proposed to co-write the Draft (it would have 
been done in two days with non-business biased people). The minority 
leader (WG-Chair) refused. We then saw a long "consensus by 
exhaustion" because I did not exhaust.

I balanced between starting a war with 10, 100 or 200 supporters. 
This would have killed the IETF (look at the PR today, if we had tens 
of them ....) and convinced no one of the interest of the IETF. And 
crusading to obtaining the text to be cleaned from most of its 
confusion, to make it less dangerous. I explained that I will appeal 
the IESG, the IAB, the IANA, the UNESCO, the ITU etc. etc. against 
the text until it matched its Charter. The Charter has been written 
by the minority/majority group to fool the IESG. It is not perfect 
but considering it, would have shown many inconsistencies we start 
seeing now. My main opposition was "consider the Charter" (in the 
IETF the IESG does not consider the Charter anymore to accept a Draft).

I obtained everything I wanted:

- the text is now cleaner. It was adopted after the Tunis agreement.
- in parallel the WSIS confirmed my position about multilingualism 
(IAB does not want to consider) calling for work on language codes
- via an appeal the IESG must review the security aspects which make 
the text quite unusable (privacy violation)
- via an appeal the IAB must say if they want the IETF to consider 
the usage/ethic impact of its decisions and the building of the 
Multilingual Internet, or if these issues must be discussed elsewhere.

This builds a situation where the "majority" loses its control on the 
IETF or its control on the real Language Registry (not any more the 
IANA). The choice is difficult. The PR action is a Denial of Thinking 
to try the IESG and the IAB cannot set their mind. But this does not 
bother me, because they will have "failed to respond". This is why 
the need is to unconsiderate me.

Either the IETF maintains the Tunis Internet (the native proposition) 
controlled by the USA and supported by the IANA. Or the IETF engages 
into a new architecture based upon a distributed registry system 
(DRS). This implies a user-centric usage architecture (which calls 
for a convergence of the digital continuity). A technology and 
economical shift of importance, the US industry and the IETF are not 
prepared to. This is why the PR was prepared by an anti-EU set-up, 
opposing the WSIS positions - to involvedthe IESG. At the end of the 
day if the IETF opposes everyone it will have to go with Unicode ... 
look at the list of the Members and of the Executives.

They have been very candid. Before attacking me seriously (physical 
allusions, anonymous calls, etc.[this is the IETF :-) and PR action) 
I was once asked "do you realise how much you cost to the industry?". 
I asked back "which industry?". The control of the text industry is 
far bigger than music, pictures and games.... What they do not 
understand is that its value comes from its diversity and Liberty.

If you are familiar with the French Minitel and Telematic, I use to 
say that we (France) built the Minitel I, that the web is the Minitel 
II and that we have now (mobiles, coreboxes, new appliances, network 
continuity) to support the Minitel III phase. I happen to have 
experimented in real life that architecture and to be in charge of 
its analysis and international deployment (Tymnet). What I sold for $ 
250.000 to State monopolies 20 years ago, is what you should soon be 
able to giveaway in a mobile to 3 billion people.

>Having been both in majorities and in minorities over the past 20 
>years or so, I know that process protection for minority rights is 
>frustrating to the majority.  I also recognize that the minority is 
>sometimes right.  Patient negotiation, no matter how difficult or 
>time consuming, is the best remedy.

I spend my time pleading for consensus. The technical solution is 
easy enough using RFC 4151 space. The problem is that they need an 
exclusive (like ICANN vs. open roots). Negotiation would be like 
ICANN accepting open roots.This is true that this is what ICANN does: 
with  NeuStar and GSMA, with China, etc.

>I urge the IESG to give Mr. Morfin the benefit of the doubt.

Thank you, but I am expandable. The IETF should not be. At least right now.
Take care.

jfc

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From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 05:32:54 +0100

> attack on the conduct of group business.

Yes.  A denial of service attack is a technical attack on a server or
network that effectively halts or dramatically interferes with normal
traffic or transactions.  An expression of an opinion or idea never
does this.

> cannot survive any sustained amount of the latter.

Well, when the mailing list receives 200 messages a second from the
same source, certainly it can take action.  There are laws against
that sort of DoS in most jurisdictions.

> between the two.

No, there's no gray area between the two.  It's pretty easy to see
when a network is down or a server is stalled because of a DoS attack,
and it has nothing in common with an expression of opinion or ideas.

> In other words, the excesses that constitute a "violation" need to
> be huge.

No, they just need to be true DoS attacks, not expressions of
unpopular opinions that are being falsely characterized as DoS attacks
in order to rationalize censorship.

> It is difficult to imagine any reasonable person looking at the
> particulars of the current case and having even the slightest doubt
> that things are far, far beyond any possible gray area.

I don't see any DoS.  I don't think anyone expressing an opinion can
type fast enough to create one.