NANOG67 - Tipping point of community and sponsor bashing?

Tue Jun 14 21:48:51 UTC 2016

> On Jun 14, 2016, at 14:05 , William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Daniel Golding <dgolding at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> "If a presentation will name a particular vendor, that vendor should receive
>>> an advance
>>> draft so that their reps are prepared to speak at the mic about their
>>> intentions. "
>> 
>> One of the least savory aspects of the technical press and industry analyst
>> worlds is something called pre-pub review. That's where big vendors pay you
>> to see stuff before its printed, so they can attempt to censor it.  It
>> happens all the time, and you never know about it.
> 
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> That's quite a bit further than anything I suggested. My notion was
> that after the presentation has been accepted, the mentioned vendors
> receive a copy... not so they can attempt to squelch it but so that
> they can respond when the presentation is given.

Here’s the problem with your theory, William…

Once you hand it to the vendors, you lose any semblance of control over how they use it.

Indeed, you’d like to hand it to them for that purpose, but once you do, nothing prevents them from the actions described by Daniel.

Indeed, this tradition in the print press began with exactly the kind of fair-minded idea of which you speak. Nonetheless, commercial interests drove it off the rails into exactly the dark and twisted kind of thing that Daniel describes. Such is the nature of commerce.

> Besides, which among you would dare try to squelch a NANOG
> presentation? Y'all are well familiar with the Streisand Effect.

Well… Some $LARGE_ORGANIZATIONS seem to either not know, don’t learn, or don’t care. Hard to tell which.

For example, there’s a certain industry that has gone through the following progression:

	1.	The FCC put forth very light-handed almost voluntary regulations on net neutrality.
	2.	They sued the FCC claiming it had no such authority.
	3.	The FCC put forth a slightly heavier-handed regulation.
	4.	They sued the FCC claiming it had no such authority.
	5.	The FCC issued a ruling entirely within its authority which was quite a bit more heavy-handed.
		It was the only tool left in the tool box once the lighter approaches were ruled invalid.
	6.	They complained that the regulation was “too heavy-handed”.
	7.	They sued the FCC claiming it had no such authority.
	8.	A federal appeals court just upheld the FCC 2:1.
	9.	They say they want to take it to the supreme court.

The bottom line, when there’s enough money on the line, some organizations with a vested interest will do anything and everything they can to protect their ability to obtain that money. Helping them is optional. Helping them by trying to be nice is naive.

Owen