Beer and Gear (Last one by me)

Josh Richards jrichard at cubicle.net
Fri Feb 23 07:43:04 UTC 2001


* Ukyo Kuonji <kawaii_iinazuke at hotmail.com> [20010222 09:10]:
> 
> There is nothing in the Charter that states that I am out of line, nor  does 
> it specify a method of removing me from the list.
> 
> I am not going to continue to carry this any farther, I just want to be 
> certain that the membership knows what is going on.  If the membership 
> chooses to be sheep, that's fine.  I will leave that alone.

Sheep?  Dude, if it ever got "bad" enough I'm sure among us we could manage
to scrounge together the resources necessary in order to set up another 
e-mail list.  If among this group of people no one was able to spare the puny
bandwidth requirements for a new e-mail list, we've got much bigger 
problems to deal with than whether Cisco can hand out underwear at our get
togethers.  Like, oh I don't know -- maybe what distracted us from operating
our networks.  Hell, perhaps we'd even be able to get organized enough to 
manage to agree upon meeting up in some city a few times a year. Yeah, 
that's the ticket. :)

Nobody is making anybody do anything.

> Since the Charter does not specify any procedure to modify the operation of 
> NANOG, any action to do so, unless supported by the membership would be 
> handled by the US courts.  I am not willing to take that action, nor do I 
> think it needs to be taken.

Huh?  Who are you going to take to court?  Merit just helps organize the
NANOG get togethers.  

Yeah, I disagree with the stipulation added in the last sentence of the 
latest addition to the charter.  Not only on principle but also on merit
(no pun intended).  But you're missing the point: that last sentence being
there doesn't really mean much.  Since there is no "Nanog, Inc." that
I am aware of, there is no entity to enforce that provision.  This whole 
group is just an informal group of people with something in common, who 
happen to have sufficient collective elements that we manage to get together
every once in a while in person.  The people of Merit just happen to be
cool enough to organize the whole thing.  They don't own or control anything
in any true entity sense.  The way I see it, the charter exists as a good 
faith effort of organization.  Nothing less.  Nothing more.  It *can't* be 
more as there is *no* NANOG the "entity" in any legal sense of the word 
(unless I've missed something drastic). 

Sure, whoever added that last addendum to the charter seems to have 
forgotten that.  It strikes me as something more that belongs in an 
organizers or hosting organization's rules for a particular event.  If you
host/organize an event that happens to be attended by NANOG list people you
can set whatever damn rules you like.  If nobody likes your rules they either 
won't show up or won't come back.  Merit, Inc. happens to organize the
events at the moment. 

And you know what?  If you really want to push it, there is nothing stopping
you or Cisco or Juniper or whomever from just coincedentally setting up a 
table "near" where this conference called "NANOG" happens to be going on. 
"It's just coincedence we're here -- really."

I don't want some NANOG BoD.  Who the hell cares?  What good would it do
other than give a few people the ability to (maliciously or not) put into
place a bunch of rules, by-laws, and regulations.  To what end?  There is
*no* NANOG.  The only NANOG is you and me and the rest of the people who
hang out on this list.  It's not like you joined a cult or something.
Nobody has to sacrifice their virgin OC-192 and brand-spanking-new core
router just to join the collective.

> PS, Don't insult me by trying to apply filters.  I'd just find another way 
> to get through if I wanted to, which I don't.

If something as simple as that insults you, well, I'm impressed you've
been able to operate a network without running away screaming.  That very
last sentence about "getting through"...that's sorta my point.  This is the 
Internet afterall.  If the nanog at merit.edu list suddenly goes entirely to
shit, most of us would just move on.  Perhaps create another list.  Or 
whatever.  

-jr

----
Josh Richards [JTR38/JR539-ARIN]
<jrichard at geekresearch.com/cubicle.net/fix.net/freedom.gen.ca.us>
Geek Research LLC - <URL:http://www.geekresearch.com/>
IP Network Engineering and Consulting
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