If you have nothing to hide

Mon Aug 5 06:13:00 UTC 2002

At 08:27 PM 8/4/2002 -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
>On Sun, 4 Aug 2002, Dave Crocker wrote:
>There is a difference between technical/operational matters and policy
>matters.  I respectfully disagree this can be treated as a technical
>problem.

Yes, it's essential to be clear about technical spec. vs. policy spec, 
although they seem to have some overlap.  Maybe a lot.  But no, that does 
not make them the same.

However the list of questions you asked, in the note I was responding to, 
looked like technical choices.  My assumption was that the "policy" issue 
was in choosing between technologies.

I consider the IETF Best Current Practises label as intended specifically 
for guidance in operations matters.  Hence the suggestion to consider it.

>What group is the best forum for developing consensus views on
>Internet operation policy issues?

In between pure tech specs and abstract policy discussion there is 
technically based consideration of tradeoffs, etc., for technical 
alternatives.  That's not something to leave to purely policy folk and my 
sense is that the IETF venue can work for such discussion.

>One of the Mr. Clarke's complaints in his speech was there is no group
>the government can go to find out what the consensus view of Internet
>operators is.  IETF doesn't appear to want to take on that role.

Hmmm.  As soon as a policy becomes multi-operator, I'll bet it starts 
looking like a technical spec.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:dave at tribalwise.com>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850