Re: [ICANN-EU] Jeanette and other candidates (was Re: Snapshots)

["Jeanette Hofmann" <jeanette@medea.wz-berlin.de>]

Oh, how I love this discussion!
>
> > whatever you've discovered between the lines, this is not my
> > approach.
>
> With all due respect, I reserve my doubts on this.

> In your debate with Lutz in the Heise forums you said:
>
> "the time when the net was mostly controlled by the
> technicians are finally over" (1)

Yes, I stated this as a fact. Many members of the IETF would say, and
have said, numerous times the same.I could provide you with quotes if
you don't believe me.
Today, engineers are forced to share their former power with those
who use the Net, most of which, unfortunately, belong to the
commercial world.

> and
>
> "I think it were helpful if engineers would restrain their
> claim for exclusive control over technology's shape somehwat" (2)

Yes, so what?

> Let me offer my very personal perception of this:
>
> Please don't claim objectivity here - you aren't. Nobody is.

I wouldn't, I just offer my personal opinions.

> If you'd be sorry about the vanishing influence of engineers on
> technology, you'd say so. You didn't. You aren't.

Of course I am not sorry. Why would I be sorry? Social elites always
suffer when they have to give up some of their power ;-)
And what is more, would I run for office if I were of the opinion that
the Net should be governed by engineers only?

> And please save me the usual diatribe about technician's arrogance
> and so on.

You don't get my point. It's not about arrogance, it's about giving users
a say in the management of one of our most important infrastructures.


Frankly, I don't care.
We all live in a world where
> engineers don't count that much. The internet was, to some degree, the
> great exception. It was, and still to a large degree is, fundamentally
> _ours_.

This is what I would call a Steilvorlage (sorry, no english translation at hand...)
In my view, the Internet is a public ressource. Nobody, neither
corporations, engineers or governments can claim it to be theirs. This
is what ICANN should be about: to develop structures and procedures
that balance the opposing approaches towards the Net.

This is one of the resaons it became such a success. It was
> designed without lawyers, without beancounters, without marketdroids.
> And it worked, worked tremendously well.

I agree, it was the very absence of the telco world that made the
Internet possible. But may I remind you that it was american
legislation that created the necessary playground for packet switching
technology to flourish?

> _Maybe_ that cannot stay this way.

Yes, I think this correct. It cannot stay this way, and all what we can
do now is to strive for preserving the freedom for heterogeneity  as it
is embedded in the Net's architecture.

jeanette


 _Maybe_ we'll all succumb to the rule
> of lawyers again. _Maybe_ next generation technology is going to be
> dictated by hoardes of board members carrying business degrees and
> marketing titles. Mabye the Stefs of the world are going to rule it
> again, sooner or later. Maybe change is irresitible.
>
> Maybe.
>
> But I don't have to like that.
>
> Yet.
>
> Regards
>
> Christoph Weber-Fahr
>
>
>
> (1) "Die Zeiten, in denen das Netz überwiegend durch Techniker regiert
> wurde, sind endgültig vorbei."
> http://www.heise.de/ct/forum/go.shtml?read=1&msg=68&g=959243064_01 (2)
> "Ich fände es hilfreich, wenn Ingenieure ihren Exklusivitätsanspruch auf
> die Gestaltung von Technik etwas zurücknehmen [...] würden"