--On Tuesday, October 7, 2003 10:27 AM +0100 Michael.Dillon@radianz.com wrote:
I think this list may be a very good choice of where to construct such a response.
Are you being paid by Verisign?
Absolutely not. In fact, I would be almost as glad to see Verisign disappear as Micr0$0ft. Lately, I'm beginning to wonder which of the two is worse.
A "constructed" response is the worst thing we could do. Everyone should write their own responses in their own words based on their own experiences or their own skills and knowledge. That's the only way to demonstrate that Verisign was wrong, wrong, wrong.
We have different meanings of that term. I think that there is value in everyone writing their own response, too. However, I do think that if we could generate a joint statement of position and get that into the right channels, it would carry some additional weight. In order to do that, it would need to explain the issues and the facts in a way that Joe and Mary household user could understand. Right now, there is a fair amount of perception that we are reactionary whiners and that we're only upset because Verisign makes money off of this.
A "constructed" response is pure politics and only demonstrates that a certain opinion is shared by a bunch of people with no basis in fact. We don't need to trumpet our opinions; we need to document and publish the facts of the matter.
A joint position statement is partially politics. However, right now, this is a political game with operational ramifications. Serious operational ramifications far beyond the effects of the wildcards. We need to document and publish the facts and show that those facts justify our opinions. We need to do it in such a way that others come to share those opinions.
And this list is definitely not the place to discuss writing a letter of protest. If political activity is your bag, then try http://www.meetup.com
On this we must agree to disagree. It's not the first time, Michael. I agree that this list is generally not the place to discuss writing a letter of protest. However, I'm not talking about writing a letter of protest. While this activity is partly political, it is politics with operational impact. I'm not opposed to taking it to another list for development, but, I think whatever comes out should be brought back here for review before being launched at the press as a statement of community position. I think it should also be taken to other similar lists and probably reviewed by the relevant working group within IETF. Owen