At Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:55:55 -0400, Steve Crocker wrote: > The choice is between engaging and not engaging. Engaging is better. > Not engaging isn't constructive. The Internet and the IETF are all > about engaging, expanding, communicating and being open. Much of this > dialog has been worried about possible extreme situations. Let's > focus on the center. More than a billion people live in China and > their use of the Internet is expanding rapidly. They are building > much of the technology and contributing technically. It's to > everyone's advantage to have comfortable, constructive interaction. > Our first slogan was "Networks Bring People Together." > > If you prefer to focus on the negatives, here's my analysis: > > If we don't go to China, we have charted a downhill course and the > rest of the world will come together without us. The IETF will lose > relevance. > > If we do go to China and something bad happens, the consequences will > be much worse for China than for the IETF. The work of the IETF will > suffer a bit, but we'll recover quickly enough. However, China's > quest for engagement with the rest of the world will be hurt more > seriously. > > Bottom line: We should go to China with a positive attitude. We're > robust enough to deal with any consequences. If we don't go to China, > however, we have weakened ourselves. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with this analysis, but I'm not sure it's a complete analysis. We've been offered a deal under certain terms that at least some of the community aren't comfortable with. Now, it might well be true that it's better to take those terms than not if those were the only two options, but that's not the case here. In particular, we can refuse to take those terms now and instead attempt to negotiate for terms that we find more acceptable. It seems to me that even under the analysis you've laid out that's a superior course of action. -Ekr _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf