Gordon, I have to admit that you're right. You really do have all the answers, and you really do know it all. I guess the fact that there are only two shareholders in Genuity, me and Bechtel, both of whom know exactly what Jon could and couldn't do, and who accepted his conditions when he joined the board, is unimportant. And the fact that Jon knew this, and understood that his fiduciary responsibility in this area was subject *only* to the shareholders, both of whom assured him in terms that he was prepared to accept that they would *not* expect him to or ask him to _abuse_ his position of trust outside of Genuity to assist Genuity unfairly, is irrelevant. Gordon, I have never been able to quite fathom out why you chose this industry to attempt to make a living, and not the same industry as the National Enquirer. I think you've missed your calling. I only hope your clients realise the true value of your reporting. So that others are privy to the same information that I gave you, let me be specific ( and remember, I don't owe ANYONE an explanation, but I want to undo the damage that your buffoonery has caused); Bechtel never really had to make a choice about whether Jon joined the board or an advisory board. I nominated him to the board as one of *my* representatives. They didn't know Jon from a hitchiker before this. I wanted someone clueful to help me guide Genuity along a *good* path, and away from the dark side (obviously I passed on asking you). I think I can proudly say that Genuity has been an exemplary internet citizen (I, of course, may not have been). So when you attempt to to wind people up with your paranoia, you do someone who has done a lot of good for the Internet over *many* years a grave injustice. Fortunately I care more about what honest, good people like Jerry Scharf says, than I do about what you say. If I didn't, I'd probably spend some real energy telling you what I really think. Does anyone know if Paul's RBL works on a single netaxs address? Rodney Joffe Chief Technology Officer Genuity Inc., a Bechtel company http://www.genuity.net
-----Original Message----- From: Gordon Cook [SMTP:cook@netaxs.com] Sent: Thursday, November 13, 1997 11:38 PM To: Jerry Scharf Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: GTE to acquire Genuity
On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, Jerry Scharf wrote:
Gordon,
you have the way of spinning the longest line of crappy conjectures into a proposal of irresponsibility.
false: you should read what i wrote more carefully before you fly publicly off t he handle.
I'm sure you could spin an equally long chain of
things into a reason why no one from the IAB or IETF ADs should have anything at stake with the industry they help direct.
So IANA has no special powers?
For this particular case, there
are facts to prove your conjecture flawed.
wrong because you misread my conjecture.
I was consulting at Genuity when then needed to do their initial IP address gathering for their new network. They sent in a proposal to Kim, and Kim told them no. Rodney was very upset at the time, but there was never any interference by the IANA. When Genuity provided better documentation and cleaned up some things, then they got address blocks like anyone else.
May I quote what you over looked: Now I am confident that he has not used his position to give special benefit to genuity.
and later in the same post: Rodney Joffe explained to me in very glowing terms this summer why jon was on the 'board" his explanation sounded fine.
Further explanation - Rodney Joffe told me precisely the same story which i published verbatim.....and more besides..... jon came out pure as the driven snow
At least judge Jon by his actions, not by your inferred doubt. The evidence is that when put in the exact situation you feared, the IANA acted by not acting. Genuity was not harmed financially by this (I think even Rodney will now admit that) so there is no damage to be fretted about. Certainly there will be a tidy profit to Bechtel and the other founders of Genuity.
I never suggested genuity was harmed. I do state that one of the senior members of the community who knows the laws of the fiduciary legal responsibility of members of boards of directors far better than I pointed out that he believed it possible that a genuity stock holder who was aware of jons proper from the internet point of view, could have taken legal action against jon for NOT making a decision that benefitted genuity and using his powers to act for the fiduciary benefit of the company of which he was a director and for which he had such a legal responsibility.
now I am a r ussian history Phd....read trained as an academic....as is jon.....and most academics aren't terribly aware of these nuances.....so I can understand jon's accepting the directorship.
guess my bitch is why would the presumably legally savvy business staff of genuity/bechtel have put jon however unwittingly into such a position?.
I have been told be those who are also my seniors, that Jon is and "icon" and when one critcizes him one can expect all hell to break loose....looks like my seniors were right.....but it also looks like I owe him no apology.
and before you continue your flame I hope you will look more carefully at what I am saying.
I believe you owe Jon a personal apology for this.
jerry
====================== read my original post more carefully this time.
Last time i looked Jon postel was still on genuity's board. It is my understanding that this gives him a LEGAL responsibility to act in the best financial interests of genuity. Seems to me this creates a conflict of interest given what with his powers as IANA he could do to benefit genuity with IP allocations etc. Now I am confident that he has not used his position to give special benefit to genuity. but I am also told that he could be regarded as culpable for not having helped them out when it could be argued he had the power to do so. This is a distinction that I was slow to grasp and one that jon with a research rather than a business background might also be slow to grasp.
Rodney Joffe explained to me in very glowing terms this summer why jon was on the 'board" his explanation sounded fine. Point is Jon could have had the same impact as a special advisor to the board. one wonders why genuity bechtel attornies that could be expected to be aware of these issues went with the board choice anyway.
does jons board position disappear when genuity is fully acquired? i would hope so.
Rather than speak ONLY to the facts, Rodney can't resist some very nice name calling and personal attacks because my criticism has obviously offended him. And regardless of what an outsider to the internet might think his motives were of course pure. Let the record speak for itself and let the discussion be taken off line and NANOG be returned to operational matters. Here, in full, is what I published in my sept 97 issue. On July 13 Rodney wrote privately to us but for publication: I've been mulling over your request, and I'm not sure how best to answer it. One of the misnomers about Genuity is that we're a start up. You'll actually find that we were one of the 22 direct connects to the CIX router in Santa Clara already in May of 1994, so I'd hardly call Genuity a start up. Although we were certainly the smallest, or one of the smallest (Jamie Saker out of Wisconsin at Synergy was probably a similar size), we were very much in business before the Internet truly became mainstream. Anyway, our early allocations were a couple of /24s, and then a 19/. We had to plead with Kim Hubbard for another 19/, but were successful in getting it only when we promised to be frugal in sub-allocations (she didn't ask for empirical evidence). Then Genuity came in to being (December 1995 when I sold 75% of the company to Bechtel). At that stage, or soon after, things tightened up. We really didn't have our act together as far as swipping address space that we had allocated to customers, and we began to run out of space. At the NANOG held in DC in 1996 all of our pleading with Kim fell on deaf ears.... Justifiably on her part (although at the time I felt a 2 x 4 was the best method of improving her hearing). So I approached everyone I could for help, including Paul Vixie and Jon Postel. Jon was very helpful, cuffing me around the ears and telling me to go away and do what the NIC wanted everyone to do, and to set an example. So, all of our Network Engineering staff got together, and over the course of a week built all the audit tools needed, and SWIPd all the addresses we had allocated, developed an ongoing plan and architecture for allocating address space, then went back to Kim for more space. Kim looked at the SWIP data, tested the integrity, and then agreed to allocate us more address space in segments, but only if we agreed to return the address space we already had if we wanted to get contiguous space allocated (I am a big believer now in CIDR). We have stuck to this religiously, and have only been turned down twice since then when we have asked for more address space (we had to tighten up more of our sub allocations). So we have not really seen any effect of RFC 2050 (I don't think) because we were already being very conservative before it was published. We maintain a very strict regime with our customers, and actually, although our customers are all corporate users, we commonly allocate /27s to them if they cannot justify more space. Jon Postel as a Genuity Board Member You asked how Jon Postel came to be on our board. As far as I know, it is the only board he sits on. He sits in one of my two board positions. He helps me provide the Internet's view to the Bechtel side of the board, so that the decisions they make are for the Internet, not against it. He helps me lend weight to making sure that we help, not hurt. We've funded well into 6 figures of software development through Vixie and Associates. Jon helped make sure that the board understood that making the applications 'freeware' and public domain was a 'good' thing. Hence "Vulture" and " Vulture 2" and Turk, which are available from Vixie's home page, and are used by many. Also we've ended up funding indirectly some of the other stuff that Paul does, related to bind, etc. Jon made it clear, as part of his involvement in our board, that his connection with IANA etc would be one way - he would be looking for a flow of help in the other direction only. We've sponsored ISOC at the fullest level because of him, we provide significant services to ISI, JPL, CalTech, and USC, and on the other hand we have disqualified ourselves from opportunities where his influence might have helped (We will *not* be applying/bidding to be one of the registrars in the new TLD world unless it is clear that the decision making process can be shown demonstrably to be untainted by any connection - currently unlikely). The interesting thing is that Jon has helped make us a good net citizen in an environment where one would believe that a privately held company with very deep pockets could have instantly become a major force for the 'dark' side. You would have to ask Jon for his full motivation, but I will tell you that you can spend as much time combing through the records as you want, and you will see that all the apparent advantages have accrued on the Internet's side. From our side, we have managed to build a solid business, based on pretty strong morals and principles, and have attracted some pretty good people who also appreciate the fact that we are able to operate without having to look over our shoulders. Jon was instrumental in this. By the way, on the few occasions that I have asked Jon questions where he felt a conflict, he has had no hesitation in telling me so. I have respected that. I'd say that Genuity owes some significant part of its success to being guided well by Jon in the good ways of the Internet. And overall I think I can say that the net itself is a better place. [Editor: Unfortunately, we did not recall, until we were going to press, that the member of a Board of Directors of a corporation has a legal, fiduciary reponsibility to that corporation. Thus, contrary to Rodney's assertion about Jon's insisting that his membership not benefit Genuity, it could be said that, if Jon had information about an action that he would take as IANA, and he did not disclose it to Genuity, he might be acting in violation of his legal, fiduciary responsibility to Genuity. If Jon served on an advisory board, this liability would vanish. Unfortunately the web page http://www.genuity.net/about_genuity/officers.html makes it very clear he is a full member of the Board of Directors of the corporation. We see this as one more example that, filled with good intentions as he may be, Jon has gotten in over his head.] ========= November 14, 1997: since sensitivities are so raw let me make a couple more things perfectly clear. It is my understand that among the original generation of internet founders Jon has likely profited from his full time dedication to the network far less than any one else. I have talked with a lot of people who for various reasons are unhappy with things that Jon has recently done. However not once has anyone person ever suggested that jon did anything for his personal benefit or profit. NEVERTHELESS: with the internet now a multi billion dollar a year global industry, the same informal standards of operation for IANA that served the internet well up to a couple of years ago are likely inadequate. IANA is perhaps the most critical set of functions in the entire network. the idea that one fallable human being like Jon - however well intentioned he may be and I am sure that he is well intentioned - can be both decision maker and court of last resort on issues as contentious as IP allocation and DNS - is an idea that is losing credibility. Given the last two years of DNS wars - if I may be allowed to have an opinion of MY own - it is especially important that, operating in an arena where most people no longer know him personally, Jon must take great care to avoid even the APPEARNCE of any conflict of interest. ************************************************************************ The COOK Report on Internet For subsc. pricing & more than 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA ten megabytes of free material (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) visit http://cookreport.com/ Internet: cook@cookreport.com New Special Report: Internet Governance at the Crossroads ($175) http://cookreport.com/inetgov.shtml ************************************************************************ On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Rodney Joffe wrote:
Gordon,
I have to admit that you're right. You really do have all the answers, and you really do know it all.
I guess the fact that there are only two shareholders in Genuity, me and Bechtel, both of whom know exactly what Jon could and couldn't do, and who accepted his conditions when he joined the board, is unimportant. And the fact that Jon knew this, and understood that his fiduciary responsibility in this area was subject *only* to the shareholders, both of whom assured him in terms that he was prepared to accept that they would *not* expect him to or ask him to _abuse_ his position of trust outside of Genuity to assist Genuity unfairly, is irrelevant.
Gordon, I have never been able to quite fathom out why you chose this industry to attempt to make a living, and not the same industry as the National Enquirer. I think you've missed your calling. I only hope your clients realise the true value of your reporting.
So that others are privy to the same information that I gave you, let me be specific ( and remember, I don't owe ANYONE an explanation, but I want to undo the damage that your buffoonery has caused);
Bechtel never really had to make a choice about whether Jon joined the board or an advisory board. I nominated him to the board as one of *my* representatives. They didn't know Jon from a hitchiker before this. I wanted someone clueful to help me guide Genuity along a *good* path, and away from the dark side (obviously I passed on asking you). I think I can proudly say that Genuity has been an exemplary internet citizen (I, of course, may not have been).
So when you attempt to to wind people up with your paranoia, you do someone who has done a lot of good for the Internet over *many* years a grave injustice. Fortunately I care more about what honest, good people like Jerry Scharf says, than I do about what you say. If I didn't, I'd probably spend some real energy telling you what I really think.
Does anyone know if Paul's RBL works on a single netaxs address?
Rodney Joffe Chief Technology Officer Genuity Inc., a Bechtel company http://www.genuity.net
-----Original Message----- From: Gordon Cook [SMTP:cook@netaxs.com] Sent: Thursday, November 13, 1997 11:38 PM To: Jerry Scharf Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: GTE to acquire Genuity
On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, Jerry Scharf wrote:
Gordon,
you have the way of spinning the longest line of crappy conjectures into a proposal of irresponsibility.
false: you should read what i wrote more carefully before you fly publicly off t he handle.
I'm sure you could spin an equally long chain of
things into a reason why no one from the IAB or IETF ADs should have anything at stake with the industry they help direct.
So IANA has no special powers?
For this particular case, there
are facts to prove your conjecture flawed.
wrong because you misread my conjecture.
I was consulting at Genuity when then needed to do their initial IP address gathering for their new network. They sent in a proposal to Kim, and Kim told them no. Rodney was very upset at the time, but there was never any interference by the IANA. When Genuity provided better documentation and cleaned up some things, then they got address blocks like anyone else.
May I quote what you over looked: Now I am confident that he has not used his position to give special benefit to genuity.
and later in the same post: Rodney Joffe explained to me in very glowing terms this summer why jon was on the 'board" his explanation sounded fine.
Further explanation - Rodney Joffe told me precisely the same story which i published verbatim.....and more besides..... jon came out pure as the driven snow
At least judge Jon by his actions, not by your inferred doubt. The evidence is that when put in the exact situation you feared, the IANA acted by not acting. Genuity was not harmed financially by this (I think even Rodney will now admit that) so there is no damage to be fretted about. Certainly there will be a tidy profit to Bechtel and the other founders of Genuity.
I never suggested genuity was harmed. I do state that one of the senior members of the community who knows the laws of the fiduciary legal responsibility of members of boards of directors far better than I pointed out that he believed it possible that a genuity stock holder who was aware of jons proper from the internet point of view, could have taken legal action against jon for NOT making a decision that benefitted genuity and using his powers to act for the fiduciary benefit of the company of which he was a director and for which he had such a legal responsibility.
now I am a r ussian history Phd....read trained as an academic....as is jon.....and most academics aren't terribly aware of these nuances.....so I can understand jon's accepting the directorship.
guess my bitch is why would the presumably legally savvy business staff of genuity/bechtel have put jon however unwittingly into such a position?.
I have been told be those who are also my seniors, that Jon is and "icon" and when one critcizes him one can expect all hell to break loose....looks like my seniors were right.....but it also looks like I owe him no apology.
and before you continue your flame I hope you will look more carefully at what I am saying.
I believe you owe Jon a personal apology for this.
jerry
====================== read my original post more carefully this time.
Last time i looked Jon postel was still on genuity's board. It is my understanding that this gives him a LEGAL responsibility to act in the best financial interests of genuity. Seems to me this creates a conflict of interest given what with his powers as IANA he could do to benefit genuity with IP allocations etc. Now I am confident that he has not used his position to give special benefit to genuity. but I am also told that he could be regarded as culpable for not having helped them out when it could be argued he had the power to do so. This is a distinction that I was slow to grasp and one that jon with a research rather than a business background might also be slow to grasp.
Rodney Joffe explained to me in very glowing terms this summer why jon was on the 'board" his explanation sounded fine. Point is Jon could have had the same impact as a special advisor to the board. one wonders why genuity bechtel attornies that could be expected to be aware of these issues went with the board choice anyway.
does jons board position disappear when genuity is fully acquired? i would hope so.
Would you guys pls take your P!$$ng contest off to another list. TE On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Gordon Cook wrote:
Rather than speak ONLY to the facts, Rodney can't resist some very nice name calling and personal attacks because my criticism has obviously offended him. And regardless of what an outsider to the internet might think his motives were of course pure. Let the record speak for itself and let the discussion be taken off line and NANOG be returned to operational matters.
Here, in full, is what I published in my sept 97 issue.
On July 13 Rodney wrote privately to us but for publication: I've been mulling over your request, and I'm not sure how best to answer it. One of the misnomers about Genuity is that we're a start up. You'll actually find that we were one of the 22 direct connects to the CIX router in Santa Clara already in May of 1994, so I'd hardly call Genuity a start up. Although we were certainly the smallest, or one of the smallest (Jamie Saker out of Wisconsin at Synergy was probably a similar size), we were very much in business before the Internet truly became mainstream.
Anyway, our early allocations were a couple of /24s, and then a 19/. We had to plead with Kim Hubbard for another 19/, but were successful in getting it only when we promised to be frugal in sub-allocations (she didn't ask for empirical evidence). Then Genuity came in to being (December 1995 when I sold 75% of the company to Bechtel).
At that stage, or soon after, things tightened up. We really didn't have our act together as far as swipping address space that we had allocated to customers, and we began to run out of space. At the NANOG held in DC in 1996 all of our pleading with Kim fell on deaf ears.... Justifiably on her part (although at the time I felt a 2 x 4 was the best method of improving her hearing). So I approached everyone I could for help, including Paul Vixie and Jon Postel. Jon was very helpful, cuffing me around the ears and telling me to go away and do what the NIC wanted everyone to do, and to set an example. So, all of our Network Engineering staff got together, and over the course of a week built all the audit tools needed, and SWIPd all the addresses we had allocated, developed an ongoing plan and architecture for allocating address space, then went back to Kim for more space.
Kim looked at the SWIP data, tested the integrity, and then agreed to allocate us more address space in segments, but only if we agreed to return the address space we already had if we wanted to get contiguous space allocated (I am a big believer now in CIDR). We have stuck to this religiously, and have only been turned down twice since then when we have asked for more address space (we had to tighten up more of our sub allocations). So we have not really seen any effect of RFC 2050 (I don't think) because we were already being very conservative before it was published. We maintain a very strict regime with our customers, and actually, although our customers are all corporate users, we commonly allocate /27s to them if they cannot justify more space.
Jon Postel as a Genuity Board Member
You asked how Jon Postel came to be on our board. As far as I know, it is the only board he sits on. He sits in one of my two board positions. He helps me provide the Internet's view to the Bechtel side of the board, so that the decisions they make are for the Internet, not against it. He helps me lend weight to making sure that we help, not hurt. We've funded well into 6 figures of software development through Vixie and Associates. Jon helped make sure that the board understood that making the applications 'freeware' and public domain was a 'good' thing. Hence "Vulture" and " Vulture 2" and Turk, which are available from Vixie's home page, and are used by many. Also we've ended up funding indirectly some of the other stuff that Paul does, related to bind, etc.
Jon made it clear, as part of his involvement in our board, that his connection with IANA etc would be one way - he would be looking for a flow of help in the other direction only. We've sponsored ISOC at the fullest level because of him, we provide significant services to ISI, JPL, CalTech, and USC, and on the other hand we have disqualified ourselves from opportunities where his influence might have helped (We will *not* be applying/bidding to be one of the registrars in the new TLD world unless it is clear that the decision making process can be shown demonstrably to be untainted by any connection - currently unlikely).
The interesting thing is that Jon has helped make us a good net citizen in an environment where one would believe that a privately held company with very deep pockets could have instantly become a major force for the 'dark' side.
You would have to ask Jon for his full motivation, but I will tell you that you can spend as much time combing through the records as you want, and you will see that all the apparent advantages have accrued on the Internet's side. From our side, we have managed to build a solid business, based on pretty strong morals and principles, and have attracted some pretty good people who also appreciate the fact that we are able to operate without having to look over our shoulders. Jon was instrumental in this.
By the way, on the few occasions that I have asked Jon questions where he felt a conflict, he has had no hesitation in telling me so. I have respected that. I'd say that Genuity owes some significant part of its success to being guided well by Jon in the good ways of the Internet. And overall I think I can say that the net itself is a better place. [Editor: Unfortunately, we did not recall, until we were going to press, that the member of a Board of Directors of a corporation has a legal, fiduciary reponsibility to that corporation. Thus, contrary to Rodney's assertion about Jon's insisting that his membership not benefit Genuity, it could be said that, if Jon had information about an action that he would take as IANA, and he did not disclose it to Genuity, he might be acting in violation of his legal, fiduciary responsibility to Genuity. If Jon served on an advisory board, this liability would vanish. Unfortunately the web page http://www.genuity.net/about_genuity/officers.html makes it very clear he is a full member of the Board of Directors of the corporation. We see this as one more example that, filled with good intentions as he may be, Jon has gotten in over his head.]
========= November 14, 1997: since sensitivities are so raw let me make a couple more things perfectly clear. It is my understand that among the original generation of internet founders Jon has likely profited from his full time dedication to the network far less than any one else. I have talked with a lot of people who for various reasons are unhappy with things that Jon has recently done. However not once has anyone person ever suggested that jon did anything for his personal benefit or profit.
NEVERTHELESS: with the internet now a multi billion dollar a year global industry, the same informal standards of operation for IANA that served the internet well up to a couple of years ago are likely inadequate. IANA is perhaps the most critical set of functions in the entire network. the idea that one fallable human being like Jon - however well intentioned he may be and I am sure that he is well intentioned - can be both decision maker and court of last resort on issues as contentious as IP allocation and DNS - is an idea that is losing credibility. Given the last two years of DNS wars - if I may be allowed to have an opinion of MY own - it is especially important that, operating in an arena where most people no longer know him personally, Jon must take great care to avoid even the APPEARNCE of any conflict of interest.
************************************************************************ The COOK Report on Internet For subsc. pricing & more than 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA ten megabytes of free material (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) visit http://cookreport.com/ Internet: cook@cookreport.com New Special Report: Internet Governance at the Crossroads ($175) http://cookreport.com/inetgov.shtml ************************************************************************
On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Rodney Joffe wrote:
Gordon,
I have to admit that you're right. You really do have all the answers, and you really do know it all.
I guess the fact that there are only two shareholders in Genuity, me and Bechtel, both of whom know exactly what Jon could and couldn't do, and who accepted his conditions when he joined the board, is unimportant. And the fact that Jon knew this, and understood that his fiduciary responsibility in this area was subject *only* to the shareholders, both of whom assured him in terms that he was prepared to accept that they would *not* expect him to or ask him to _abuse_ his position of trust outside of Genuity to assist Genuity unfairly, is irrelevant.
Gordon, I have never been able to quite fathom out why you chose this industry to attempt to make a living, and not the same industry as the National Enquirer. I think you've missed your calling. I only hope your clients realise the true value of your reporting.
So that others are privy to the same information that I gave you, let me be specific ( and remember, I don't owe ANYONE an explanation, but I want to undo the damage that your buffoonery has caused);
Bechtel never really had to make a choice about whether Jon joined the board or an advisory board. I nominated him to the board as one of *my* representatives. They didn't know Jon from a hitchiker before this. I wanted someone clueful to help me guide Genuity along a *good* path, and away from the dark side (obviously I passed on asking you). I think I can proudly say that Genuity has been an exemplary internet citizen (I, of course, may not have been).
So when you attempt to to wind people up with your paranoia, you do someone who has done a lot of good for the Internet over *many* years a grave injustice. Fortunately I care more about what honest, good people like Jerry Scharf says, than I do about what you say. If I didn't, I'd probably spend some real energy telling you what I really think.
Does anyone know if Paul's RBL works on a single netaxs address?
Rodney Joffe Chief Technology Officer Genuity Inc., a Bechtel company http://www.genuity.net
-----Original Message----- From: Gordon Cook [SMTP:cook@netaxs.com] Sent: Thursday, November 13, 1997 11:38 PM To: Jerry Scharf Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: GTE to acquire Genuity
On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, Jerry Scharf wrote:
Gordon,
you have the way of spinning the longest line of crappy conjectures into a proposal of irresponsibility.
false: you should read what i wrote more carefully before you fly publicly off t he handle.
I'm sure you could spin an equally long chain of
things into a reason why no one from the IAB or IETF ADs should have anything at stake with the industry they help direct.
So IANA has no special powers?
For this particular case, there
are facts to prove your conjecture flawed.
wrong because you misread my conjecture.
I was consulting at Genuity when then needed to do their initial IP address gathering for their new network. They sent in a proposal to Kim, and Kim told them no. Rodney was very upset at the time, but there was never any interference by the IANA. When Genuity provided better documentation and cleaned up some things, then they got address blocks like anyone else.
May I quote what you over looked: Now I am confident that he has not used his position to give special benefit to genuity.
and later in the same post: Rodney Joffe explained to me in very glowing terms this summer why jon was on the 'board" his explanation sounded fine.
Further explanation - Rodney Joffe told me precisely the same story which i published verbatim.....and more besides..... jon came out pure as the driven snow
At least judge Jon by his actions, not by your inferred doubt. The evidence is that when put in the exact situation you feared, the IANA acted by not acting. Genuity was not harmed financially by this (I think even Rodney will now admit that) so there is no damage to be fretted about. Certainly there will be a tidy profit to Bechtel and the other founders of Genuity.
I never suggested genuity was harmed. I do state that one of the senior members of the community who knows the laws of the fiduciary legal responsibility of members of boards of directors far better than I pointed out that he believed it possible that a genuity stock holder who was aware of jons proper from the internet point of view, could have taken legal action against jon for NOT making a decision that benefitted genuity and using his powers to act for the fiduciary benefit of the company of which he was a director and for which he had such a legal responsibility.
now I am a r ussian history Phd....read trained as an academic....as is jon.....and most academics aren't terribly aware of these nuances.....so I can understand jon's accepting the directorship.
guess my bitch is why would the presumably legally savvy business staff of genuity/bechtel have put jon however unwittingly into such a position?.
I have been told be those who are also my seniors, that Jon is and "icon" and when one critcizes him one can expect all hell to break loose....looks like my seniors were right.....but it also looks like I owe him no apology.
and before you continue your flame I hope you will look more carefully at what I am saying.
I believe you owe Jon a personal apology for this.
jerry
====================== read my original post more carefully this time.
Last time i looked Jon postel was still on genuity's board. It is my understanding that this gives him a LEGAL responsibility to act in the best financial interests of genuity. Seems to me this creates a conflict of interest given what with his powers as IANA he could do to benefit genuity with IP allocations etc. Now I am confident that he has not used his position to give special benefit to genuity. but I am also told that he could be regarded as culpable for not having helped them out when it could be argued he had the power to do so. This is a distinction that I was slow to grasp and one that jon with a research rather than a business background might also be slow to grasp.
Rodney Joffe explained to me in very glowing terms this summer why jon was on the 'board" his explanation sounded fine. Point is Jon could have had the same impact as a special advisor to the board. one wonders why genuity bechtel attornies that could be expected to be aware of these issues went with the board choice anyway.
does jons board position disappear when genuity is fully acquired? i would hope so.
On Fri, Nov 14, 1997 at 10:58:59AM -0500, Gordon Cook wrote:
Rather than speak ONLY to the facts, Rodney can't resist some very nice name calling and personal attacks because my criticism has obviously offended him. And regardless of what an outsider to the internet might
... and this personal fight is being discussed in this mailing list because....? Take it to private e-mail. -- Steve Sobol, Tech Support, New Age Consulting Service, Inc. 216 619-2000 sjsobol @ nacs.net http://www.nacs.net "The problem with the gene pool is that there's no lifeguard." - A friend of mine on #romance
At 12:08 AM 11/14/97 -0700, Rodney Joffe wrote:
Gordon, I have never been able to quite fathom out why you chose this industry to attempt to make a living, and not the same industry as the National Enquirer. I think you've missed your calling.
Could we inject some content in this discussion? For example, how much did you and Bechtel settle for on the sale to BBN/GTE? :-) --Kent
participants (6)
-
Gordon Cook -
John Curran -
Kent W. England -
Rodney Joffe -
Steve Sobol -
Tom Eastgard