Re: [ga] RE: is ICANN or is ICANN not?

[JFC Morfin <jefsey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:41 31/01/2007, Elisabeth Porteneuve wrote:
> Roberto,
> Let us to be fair, it helps.

Elisabeth,
you are fully right. However, if we dig into the past we will find 
many misunderstandings. Also, people changed, and mutual awareness 
developed. I have proposed Roberto a meeting on the issue, possibly 
within the EGENI framework, with all the concerned parties. You 
would  obviously be one of them.

The important issue is that Internet practices do not diverge from 
the International Standards and there is a single place to decide the 
same thing. Stephane questions to know if ISO knows the Internet. ISO 
has made ICANN a member of the 3166 MA and wanders if ICANN knows who 
is relying on ISO 3166. This is why I lobby for ICANN to be replaced 
there by an IGF representative (I have no opposition that ICANN could 
be it, should ICANN and the USA start seriously participating to the 
IGF/WSIS process)

I have obtained that RFC 4646 creates an ietf-languages@xxxxxxxx 
mailing list, everyone could attend, and repeatedly proposed that it 
would have three or four co-reviewers (as suggested by its author 
from Google); proposing the IANA LSERegistries author (Doug Ewell), 
the ISO 15924 author (scripts, Michael Everson) and an ISO 3166 MA 
delegate or its chair. The issue is more complex with ISO 639 
(languages) as there is obviously a debate where the US and French 
positions tend now to be very similar, and disagreeing with the 
current confusion of the ISO TC37 over the desire to standardise the 
languages themselves, rather than their names. This RFC 4646 tendency 
develops the same regarding the country names where they prefer to 
speak of 'regions' the government of which is a detail, in obvious 
conflict with the WSIS resolutions.

Anyway, for the time being the IESG violates RFC 4646 and maintains 
in operation the RFC 3066 patch: ietf-languages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Of 
which I have been banned by his Google owner because I explained that 
it was not because they refused to acknowledge "en-EU" (Eurospeak) 
that Brussels and Europe will not use it. You measure the worldwide 
impact and the "en-US" advantage of denying the first economical 
language of the world on the Internet.

These kind of tension is exactly what we want to avoid.

IRT ".su", the historical ".suhh" domain is here to support the USSR 
Internet archives. If some need a more generic name, ICANN can create 
".cei". The US ICANN mercantilism is well exposed by the 
http://kgb.su page. To permit that, when you think of the gulag and 
of the millions of dead! Why not http://shoah.ss ?

> > The ISO MA had no clue of what were the potential problems 
> downstream due to
> > the usage of the standard. Then they decided to have ICANN onboard for this
> > very reason.
>
> The ICANN was well aware of using ISO 3166-1 2-letters standard, but had
> no clue that they have to communicate with ISO 3166/MA to take care of
> a standard they are relying upon.
>
> Eventually ICANN woke up, and accepted to join the ISO 3166/MA (and spent
> 3 years not participating in any ISO 3166/MA debate or meeting; the very
> first ICANN's deleguee to ISO 3166/MA showed up last August).

Correct.

> > I think that ISO learned the lesson.
>
> I do hope that ICANN learned the lesson as well.

Let say that we all learned the lesson. But that most did not see - 
or still do not see - the next source of conflict and instability, 
the illegal ietf-languages@xxxxxxxxxxxxx continuation and its Unicode 
consortium control over the IANA LSERegistries, nor the Google's 
control on cultures and IANA's future through the langtags libraries 
of Mark Davis and RFC 4647. This is why I am impatient to know who 
will be the next IETF Chair and IESG Members. This may very well 
decide of the Internet split, to preserve the stability of the non US 
commercial world digital ecosystem. We actually are in a political 
situation very similar to the Global Warming.

Cheers.
jfc