Re: Functional differentiation and administrative restructuring

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Hi John,

No problem, my skin is not that thin. As i have tried to explain on the IETF list, i think we need to understand all options including these two extremes - the ones not specifically covered in the mud document. I find the models expressed in the document somewhat incomplete and slightly disingenuous in that they don't discuss the implications of the end of the road - as far as i can tell they hand wave about 'extraneous' results. And while I have never managed to get invovled in the policy part of IETF+ISOC, it is something i care about quite a bit.

So if my notes provoke the discussion, even in the form of 'rants', i am satisfied.

And thanks for the apology.

a.

ps. i don't have the negative connotations to absorbtion that you do. I see that as another term for merger, though, since ISOC is the real entity from a corporate point of view, it would constitute an absortion. It is the conditions, as in by-law changes and perhaps MOUs, that determine whether this is beneficial or destructive.


On 8 sep 2004, at 09.41, John C Klensin wrote:



--On Wednesday, 08 September, 2004 08:53 -0400 avri@xxxxxxx
wrote:

Hi John,

Thanks for you analysis.  It was something I felt lacking and
has helping me in my wavering between the absorption into ISOC
model and the independent corporate model.

I look forward to your analysis of the absorption model.

Avri, I want to apologize in advance for using your note as the excuse for the rant below. You are certainly not the first person to do this and probably won't be the last; your note just arrived at a convenient time.

<rant>
I think we need to be very careful about slapping labels of
convenience on options and then getting distracted by what those
labels "mean".  Doing so can really distract from a productive
discussion in which information is exchanged.    There has been
a lot of that sort of distraction, and the associated confusion,
going on, since even before San Diego.

"Absorption" is a loaded term.  If we are asked "how would you
like to be absorbed into foo", the answer has got to be "no".
For me, at least, the recurring image is some rather unpleasant
(for the food) digestion process.  But, to my knowledge, no one
has seriously proposed anything of the sort.   Certainly the
standards process has not been "absorbed".   I doubt that the
RFC Editor staff would consider themselves "absorbed".  There
are unincorporated organizations in addition than the IETF which
have worked closely with ISOC for years and haven't been
"absorbed" either.

And "independent corporate model", while less loaded
semantically (at least for me), is almost equally bad: to the
best of my knowledge, no one has really seriously proposed that
either, since "independent" would imply "own fundraising" and
presumably untangling the standards model which is now seriously
intertwined with ISOC.   As long as critical pieces of those
things remain in ISOC's hands, we aren't "independent" in any of
the normal senses of that term.
</rant>

    john






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