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Re: [ICANN-EU] ... and other candidates



At 22:48 22/08/2000 +0100, Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
>those of you who are familiar with IETF talk may recall
>the very common phrase: "let the market decide" - meaning, we
>develop standards, but it's the commercial world that decide upon its
>success.
>This model, which, frankly, never convinced me, doesn't work
>anymore on the planet Internet.

note that some of us IETF people regard it as a swear phrase, amounting to 
"we've been unable to reach a conclusion by rational means".
Several times the market has thrown the ball back in our teeth, saying in 
effect "without a single standard, there is no market". Recently in the 
competing solutions to the SNMPv2 debacle.

The market *always* decides. But not necessarily from the alternatives we 
would like it to choose from.

            Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, alvestrand@cisco.com
+47 41 44 29 94
Personal email: Harald@Alvestrand.no