that observation....

Wed May 1 20:08:44 UTC 1996

Forwarded w/o attribution.
(perhaps this is not appropriate but I do feel this way alot... :)
						-bill

There are really only <n> discussions on NANOG/CIDRD, which
occasionally flare up like spontaneously combusting drunks on rs-talk,
iepg, and ietf as well.  Herein, a kind of Meta-FAQ, a Field Guide to
the Meta-Wars:

1.  InterNIC-bashing, complete with loud revisitings of the legitimacy
of the InterNIC in particular and the entire registry concept in
general.  Recently this is characterized also by thundering herds of
lawyers explaining how the Internet must change to accommodate
American trademark law and repeated threats to sue the IANA by various
people with 386s and 56k lines who want to run top-level domain
registries.  Inevitable conclusion: We need a heavily regulated, global
free market in DNS registries, as well as more root servers and the 
IANA to be shot or elected or crowned king or something.

2.  The IP Address Allocation wars, complete with Noel Chiappa's
brilliant explanations of the relevant graph theory, "Life is unfair"
lectures from large (or non) ISPs, "The net is unfair" whines from
small (or wannabe) ISPs, and many non-lawyers ranting about restraint
of trade and other topics in antitrust law and public policy.
Inevitable conclusion: We need a heavily regulated, global free market in
address space and routing advertisements, as well as bigger routers
and faster light.

3.  ISP bashing, with elements of both the above plus much more,
inevitably including Sprint bashing wrt route filtering and NAP
policy.  Inevitable conclusion: Sprint is Babylon and Sean Doran is
the antiChrist.  Inevitable conclusion: everybody should peer with the
Route Servers, except for when everybody should blow them up and peer
with everybody down to Bill's Bait & Sushi Shoppe for free.  Coming
attraction: Will MFuuSoftNet be an Even Bigger Threat to The Net As We
Know It.

Meta-conclusion: it's sort of reassuring.  "Imminent collapse of the
Internet, GIFs at 11:00".....