Re: Representation of end-users at the IETF (Was: mini-cores (was Re: ULA-C)

["Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <froomkin at law.miami.edu>]

I'd be careful about using the ICANN/ALAC example as proving much of 
anything other than if a group wishes to set up some window-dressing so it 
can say users are consulted, and ensures that the users have no particular 
influence in the group's activities (compared to every other represented 
interest group), that then you get an ineffective outcome.

I'd expect that in the unlikely event the IETF were to go down this road, 
they would actually use Internet tools to organize people and discussions, 
and that the process would be colored with far more good sense, good faith 
and good will.

That doesn't mean it would work or that you should do it -- the obstacles 
are real and serious -- just that I don't think you can generalize from a 
process, the ALAC, that was not engineered to work so much as to generate 
good news coverage.  Indeed, ALAC is there because there was some powerful 
end-user representation in ICANN 1.0, and the powers that be didn't like 
the Mensheviks.

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007, Paul Hoffman wrote:

> At 10:11 PM +0200 9/19/07, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> > Time to have a formal representation of end-users at the IETF?
> >
> > http://patrick.vande-walle.eu/internet/how-can-the-engineering-community-and-the-users-meet/
> >
> > (My personal worry about this proposal is that there is zero
> > organisation of end-users at this time. ALAC, mentioned by Vande
> > Walle, is a complete failure.)
>
> Given that ICANN's ALAC is the example that has had the most effort put 
> behind it, and it is indeed a complete failure, why do you think the IETF 
> would do any better? Or, even if we did do better in the long run, that the 
> huge amount of effort it would take would not have been better spent on 
> technical matters?
>
> --Paul Hoffman, Director
> --VPN Consortium
>
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