[Ltru] Last Call - Draft complying with equal ligusitic opportunity obligations

[r&d afrac <rd at afrac.org>]

The main reason why I and many will oppose this Draft is the abilty of use 
it and not to fully respect the obligations of equal linguistic opportunity 
obligations. A standard cannot force this, the same as it cannot force to 
respect IPRs which may be involved in applications, this is why it includes 
legal wording to show that infringements to IPRs in using the standard was 
not the intend of its authors and that its authors wanted the users of the 
standard would respect IPRs.

The "equal lingustic opportunity declaration" is a general declaration 
which is proposed to address this problem. The text has been already review 
by members of most of the involved organisations in the Intergovernance. To 
refuse to adhere to this declaration or to its equivalent will be 
understood as a deliberate political position "not to".

This shows how supposedly "not making policy" in not telling it 
approiprietly is the worst way to make politics.

At 12:28 13/07/2005, Martin Duerst wrote:
> Also, some of the wording proposed sounds a bit
> too much like "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"
> (or "Liberte', Egalite', Fraternite'", or whatever your local
> version), or seen from the negative side, like "motherhood and
> applepie" (sorry, don't know what the French equivalent would
> be).

This wording is exactly derived from the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights. I do not know your apple stuff meaning, but would it be good if 
some press used your remark as a way for an IETF WG Chair to qualify HRs? 
(just to show the risk not to document the intended boarder between 
technical and political issues when they correlate).

Now, let understand that this wording as a "political protection" as other 
wording is mandatory "legal protection". There are two ways to introduce 
this text:

1. either in the Draft which wants to deal with language, as a declaration 
of intent to best respect HRs as they think it feasible (see below)
2. or through a specialised BCP imposing the wording to all the RFCs. This 
may be too much and create a debate which may be detimental to the image of 
the IETF (consider the remarks received here, being made and published on 
the main IETF list and their international impact). I want to defend the 
network and the people, not to damage IETF.

Why is this technical? Because, the Draft does not support all the 
languages in the same way as English. It does not permit everyone from 
every language to equally share in R&D with the political, industrial, 
human impact this may have. Leading to a difference between people on the 
base of their knowledge or not of English, or their keyboard where HRs 
forbide them (becoming WG-ltru Members, or simply users or simply 
end-users). I can answer to the question of Martin on why they are not here 
(I am not sure we need such a debate, here and now).

What becomes highly political in this Draft is when technical solutions (as 
the ones I work on) are not considered as they should. I therefore call for 
the following paragraph to be introduced to show the authors are bona fide 
persons. To show they tried their best to match the technical ethical 
challenges. Since I contest they tried it: it would seem very odd they refuse.

"The IANA adheres to the language equal opportunity declaration,

The purpose of technology isn't to insure that everybody should have an 
equal opportunity whatever his language, its purpose is to allow this goal.

This document's aim is to allow everyone to freely share the cultural life 
of the Internet community, to enjoy using its solutions on an equal 
linguistic, cultural, technical, economical and commercial basis, and to 
share into the benefits of the technology and its advancements without 
distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, 
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or 
other status and education. Therefore the goal is to build a common 
technical standard for all people and all nations to be used or embedded in 
any technical solution, without any limitation resulting from the script, 
the language, the referent or the context of the technical environment.

Taking into account the granular nature and the diversity of the world's 
digital ecosystem as well as the requirements of its technical convergence, 
the authors of this technical memorandum strongly advocate its free, secure 
and stable implementation to serve the rights and freedoms of its users at 
an international, national and personal level, in the respect of sovereign 
laws and jurisdiction of each State, of the empowerment of local cultures, 
and of its intergovernance by subsidiarity in any of the public or private, 
community or individual contexts.

jfc


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