Don,
Thanks for the reply!
I spend a fair amount of my time explaining to people that ISOC is good
organization with a good membership committed to an open Internet, etc.,
etc. But they always hit me with the ISOC/IANA dealings with WIPO, ITU,
and the US DoC in the controversial formation of ICANN (and earlier, with
IAHC-MoU). It is hard to argue against that, and I usually fall back on
drawing a line between members and leadership. (I guess that puts the
blame on you, Don! Sorry about that! :-) As we know from experience,
organizational leadership involves taking the blame for what goes wrong and
crediting others for what goes right.)
In any case, in the upcoming At Large elections, ISOC's *members* will be
making decisions, so the question of leadership is less salient. It seems
likely that ISOC's members will constitute a significant number of the
total voters, perhaps even a majority in some regions.
I know that ISOC members can be a major force for promoting the kinds of
values that the NCDNHC supports. Those values include:
protecting free speech
promoting civil society use of the Net
defending the Net against agressive Intellectual Property interests
promoting the interests of small business
defending against government regulation
promoting the interests of developing countries
This discussion is probably best pursued in a different forum. Don, maybe
you and I can raise it in ISOC's Internet Society Task Force forum.
Again, to those who have been critical of ISOC, I reply that it is an
organization whose members are committed to non-commercial values and who
will be likely to vote those values in the upcoming At-Large elections.
Cheers,
Hans
At 06:10 PM 5/10/00 -0400, Don Heath wrote:
>
>At 10:57 PM 5/10/00 +0200, Hans Klein wrote:
>
>>As a member of ISOC and a leader of the public policy track of numerous
>>ISOC/INET conferences, I recognize great value in giving ISOC chapters more
>>of a voice in the NCDNHC. The *membership* of ISOC has often been a
>>powerful and effective voice for civil society, for developing countries,
>>and for small business -- all the groups that often feel unrepresented in
>>the ICANN power structure. Unfortunately, because ISOC as an organization
>>has so often been aligned with trademark interest and pro-regulation
>>national governments,
>
>Arrrrgh. Hans, you cut me to the quick! I can understand why you MIGHT
>say trademark interests (only because I served on a WIPO panel) even though
>ISOC would not side with one view over another on the subject of TM. [We
>would try to cite an objective view and one that would attempt to highlight
>ramifications to the Internet - as opposed to addressing the specific issue
>of TM interests vs . . . .] But, I digress.
>
>Please don't ever be under the impression that we would be aligned with
>pro-regulation governments. That is almost laughable to associate ISOC
>with such a thing. Interestingly, we may have some national chapters who
>could be viewed as you describe.
>
>
>>I strongly encourage ISOC chapters to loudly and clearly articulate the
>>values upon which ISOC is founded. ISOC is not a trademark organization.
>>ISOC is not a supporter of Internet regulation. ISOC is not a supporter
>>of powerful and centralized governance of cyberspace.
>
>Thanks Hans! Well said.
>
>I am in an awkward position on the subject of chapters being able to
>vote. whatever position I might take would be the wrong one. I would
>rather see this vetted as it is being done now, and let the chips fall
>where they may as a result of the discussions.
>
>Best,
>Don
>
>
--- You are currently subscribed to ncdnhc-discuss as: Kent@SONGBIRD.COM To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-ncdnhc-discuss-1729M@lyris.isoc.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 09 2000 - 13:20:39 PDT