An update on the AfriNIC situation

Tue Aug 31 05:00:46 UTC 2021

On 8/31/21 01:08, Owen DeLong wrote:

> Just as I would fight for the rights of those I disagree with to express their views in the US under the first amendment rights granted by the US Constitution.

I fail to see how the U.S. Constitution is an applicable example for 
what CI are doing in Africa.

> If one is to believe in the rule of law, one must not attempt to distort the law to punish those you do not like if they are compliant with the law. Instead, work through the legitimate processes as they exist to change the laws.

Well, the law did work. AFRINIC were asked not to revoke the CI space, 
which they complied with.

The distortion, here, is that CI took this matter significantly further, 
in an effort to cripple AFRINIC from attempting to work through this in 
any other way.

There is no way of sugar-coating it, Owen. It's bad form, and not a 
humane way of dealing with an asset that requires communal trust capital.

> There are a variety of possible ways in which the AFRINIC community could develop legitimate policies which would be problematic for the business model of Cloud Innovation (or at least require some changes to their business practices). However, no such policy has yet come to consensus and attempting to inflict policies which don’t exist on any resource member and revoke that member’s resources according to said non-existent policies is just plain wrong. As I have stated before, I think that AFRINIC’s willing to engage in practices not supported by the bylaws, CPM, or RSA is the greater threat to the RIR system, so I oppose AFRINIC on that basis. Quite literally, IMHO, in the interests of this very community.

None of this matters because the issue was taken to court, and they 
found in favour of CI. That should have been the end, both sides reset, 
and play the game another way that does not irresponsibly hurt 
livelihoods during tough pandemic times.

The extra gloating by freezing AFRINIC's operations was totally 
unnecessary and opportunistic, against an organization that does not 
have the resources to play the same game at that level. How is that 
helping anyone, really?

>
> I get that it’s popular to dislike Lu.

I, personally, do not have any thoughts on Lu. I'm too busy trying to 
build the African Internet.

>   He’s not a particularly likable guy at first blush. He’s arrogant, profit focused, and comes from a non-technical business background. But this isn’t a popularity contest. This is about the very soul of the AFRINIC and whether we want an organization that operates according to its governing documents, or one which substitutes the ideology and judgment of its staff in place of the guidance from the community in order to carry out a vendetta against a member that is unpopular.

Well, looks like he got the jump on AFRINIC with that "vendetta", then. 
I don't see him struggling to pay any of this employees so they can have 
a meal tonight.

This will definitely make him much more likeable, less arrogant, and 
more humane.

At the end of the day, what we do on this earth is about people. All 
this Internet stuff we build is about people, not about itself. While 
it's easy to condense things into "it's not personal, it's business", 
that is not real life. In real life, we spend inordinate amounts of 
personal time building businesses. It's a personal thing. It's a people 
thing.

CI will need the support of people, one day. I hope to be alive to see 
what happens, on that morning.

> So yes, I continue to work for and support Lu in this capacity because in this case, I believe AFRINIC has overstepped its mandate and acted contrary to its own policies and bylaws as they are written. I am standing up for what I believe to be right, even though I don’t particularly like the side that puts me on in this case. I tried my best to make this clear before things escalated. I did everything I could to avert this escalation, but I faced even more problematic egos on the AFRINIC side than on the Cloud Innovation side.
>
> I am here doing what I am doing because I have ethics and morals. Because even though I often disagree with Lu, in this case, he happens to be right and AFRINIC must not be allowed to act so irresponsibly in this matter.

Let me go donate some more to AFRINIC staff, so they can have some bread 
and water before they put to bed and have to think about tomorrow. I've 
been out of school for a long time, but when I went there, ethics and 
morals were not a macro nutrient.

Mark.