[EURO-Discuss] WWW III.0

[JFC Morfin]

Dar folks,

I am surprised and somewhat dismayed that no one in "Civil Society" 
and @LARGEs seems interested and that no one is discussing the 
"W.W.W. 3.0" episode that is now developing. I name WWW 3.0 as the 
Whole World War at the "3.0" level that concerns us all. This episode 
is the attempt of the commercial funding (and not the ITU) to take 
over ultimate control of international standardization's future 
throughout and through the Internet standardization process 
(IAB/IETF/ISOC), reversing its documented position in RFC 3869 and 
3935 and hijacking innovation trends (the "3.0" coming layers).

1.       Why do I talk of "commercial funding"?

Because the IAB warned us of the danger that we are facing and 
explained how to avoid it in RFC 3869 (Aug. 2004) and neither 
Governments, nor Civil Society or International Organizations, did 
anything about it. Only a small kernel of us tried to do something.

In Aug. 2004, the IAB stated: "The principal thesis of this document 
is that if commercial funding is the main source of funding for 
future Internet research, the future of the Internet infrastructure 
could be in trouble. In addition to issues about which projects are 
funded, the funding source can also affect the content of the 
research, for example, towards or against the development of open 
standards, or taking varying degrees of care about the effect of the 
developed protocols on the other traffic on the Internet."

This resulted from "the reduced U.S. Government funding and 
profit-focused, low-risk, short-term industry funding has been a 
decline in higher-risk but more innovative research activities. 
Industry has also been less interested in research to evolve the 
overall Internet architecture, because such work does not translate 
into a competitive advantage for the firm funding such work." 
Therefore, IAB believed "that it would be helpful for governments and 
other non-commercial sponsors to increase their funding of both basic 
research and applied research relating to the Internet, and to 
sustain these funding levels going forward."
    *  In Tunis the world's Governments left the US Government to 
take care of the Legacy Internet and did not get themselves involved 
in the emergence of any architectural research.
    *  The IETF did not participate in the WSIS nor get involved in the IGF.
    *  Civil society non-commercial sponsors or helpers did not join 
our successful efforts (so far) at the IETF:
        *  To protect languages and cultures from engineering and 
business control.
        * Introduce a civil society technical place at the IETF (the 
Internet Users Contributing Group)
        * To obtain the validation of an Intelligent Use (IUse) 
Interface (IUI) concepts.
    *  We feel alone in creating the Intelligent Use Task Force 
(IUTF) to explore, document, validate, and deploy the people centric 
capacity demanded by the WSIS.
2.       Why do I use "3.0"?

This is because in a nutshell if "2.0" has now an accepted meaning, 
the 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 "notions" (i.e. all of what can relate to a 
topic) can be perceived as:
    * "1.0" meaning: server centric monologue, and related
    * "2.0" meaning: network centric dialogue, and related
    * and "3.0" meaning: people centric polylogue, and related.
  So,
    * "Master/Slave" initial Web connections are "1.0".
    * Wikis, AJAX, WebSocket, etc. are "2.0".
    * The Internet+, the IUI (intelligent use interface), Midori/Hurd 
(the Microsoft's and Stallman's expected replacements for Windows and 
Linux), etc. are "3.0."
Another "technical way" to understand this might be, in strict, 
simple, and robust concordance with RFC 1958, which defines the 
internet architecture, to say that:
    * 1.0 builds atop "plug to plug" hardware,
    * 2.0 builds atop "end to end" software,
    * and 3.0 atop "fringe to fringe" middleware.
  Two key points remain, however: what about "0.0" and "4.0" and 
exactly what is "3.0"?
    *  "0.0" is everything that we do in order to communicate and 
understand information without digital tools in mind and that is 
generically called semiotics. "4.0" is what our brains do through 
digital semiotics that we can call brainware.
    *  "3.0" is what RFC 1958 states that we must put at the fringe: 
network intelligent services. It is only some plugged layers on the 
user side (PLUS), extending the OSI communication model, along with 
its administration and governance. The "OSEX" model extended layers concern:
        * Security (and presentation in the Internet case).
        * Network services.
        * Interoperations between network applications and services
  In the users' life, it should appear as personal distributed 
middleware empowering browsers (in computers, mobiles, tablets, 
appliances, TVs, houses, cars, etc.) with intelligent open services 
that are free to choose their reference providers. One may understand 
a person's IUI as an "intelligent socket" system acting as private 
intelligent gateway network interfacing the OS of his/her machines 
and appliances in such a way that it makes that person the center of 
his/her freely selected worldwide digital ecosystem.

3.       Why do I use "Whole"?

This is because we do not discuss the Web or even the sole Internet 
any more. We discuss the whole digital ecosystem (WDE), i.e. all the 
physical or logical parallel interconnections to anything digital by 
our Intelligent Use Interface (IUI).

So, what is at stake is the whole digital ecosystem industrial 
pollution (and corruption) and biased innovation. How?

Through market driven commercially sponsored international standards, 
as was just explained by the IAB.

To understand why:
    * a norm is the description of normality. Until now, norms were 
local (for a country) or professional (for a trade, skill, or task).
    * Norms, therefore, opposed globalization. This is why the trend 
that is pushed by the commercial funding is to unify normality, i.e. 
to shape the world as a unique market.
Hundreds of wars and revolutions have failed to attain that target 
throughout history. Those who Richard Buckminster Fuller calls the 
"Grand Pirates" (in his "Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth") found 
a simpler way after WWI and WW II where they had lost control to 
engineers (from submarines and planes to the atom and computers): to 
recover control by using the common desire for international peace, 
human rights, democracy, etc. and the resulting needs for a better 
economy through a world market and rules.

These rules in technologies are "standards". They say how to 
technically best build atop of norms. Therefore, they call for common 
uniform norms, and at the same time the international standards 
progressively shape a new "world normality" as, and for, a "common 
world market".

This normality must be stable to protect market shares: as we know 
they call this stability the "status quo".

Disruptive and fundamental innovations become a risk. TMs and 
incremental innovation are tuned to keep consumers buying. However, 
incremental innovation must be based upon international standards 
protecting from a competitor's breakthrough and have to be coherently 
ubiquitous to keep being accepted by the permanently reshaped customers (us).

Industrial evolution is only permitted after amortization and only if 
it increases benefits. However, this is not the lead-users' (FLOSS, 
start-ups, user R&D, press) pace.

What the Web 2.0 already did to the Internet 1.0 has to be digested 
and reshaped in a commercially favorable landscape of WebApps: this 
is the task of the International Standardization and marketing consensuses.

The IDNA2008 consensus and its progressive propagation throughout the 
protocol space (WG/Precis) shows the coming of the IUI 3.0 and of the 
Internet+ (tested by Google+) – whatever you want to call that 
Internet built-in trend – as ineluctable. The International Standards 
bodies are to confuse and delay its concepts enough for it not to become:
    * An identified, independent, and acknowledged middleware 
standardization core area (IUTF)
    * A people centric enhanced cooperation capacity for the 
internet, social nets, telephone, radio, TV, digital music, e-books, 
etc. polycratic stewardship.
  Multistakeholderism must stay among commercial leaders, not to 
extend to everyone, especially if Civil Society and ethitechnics 
(ethical considerations in architectural design) are involved.

4.       Why do I say "World"?

This is because this does not only concern the sole US market, or the 
Western developed countries market, or even the emergent countries 
(India, China, Russia, etc.), but rather everywhere. This results 
from the WWWeb e-marketing field of competition. All is market driven 
and the market is global. No one must be able to endanger the 
commercial leaders' famous names and commercial rights anywhere in the world.

The strategy for years has been called "internationalization": 
offensive business protection through the spread of the commercial 
leaders' industrial technology supported by:
    * favorable commercial conditions
    * correlative identical local standardization
    * permitted mass production increases, now on a multinational basis.
A well known example is the Unicode consortium's (IBM, Microsoft, 
Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Oracle...) successful technical "globalization":
    * internationalization of the media (International English 
capacity to quote any string in any script, which does not fully 
support the languages that use the scripts), being the maintainer of 
the ISO 10646 standard.
    * localization (local translation) of the English semantic, which 
does not support the various cultural semantics
    * language tagging for technical, operational, commercial 
non-neutral filtering purposes.
This globalization is not a multilingualization that would set out to 
technically treat and culturally respect every language and its 
orthotypography the same as English is treated.

4.       Why do I say "War"?

Because of:

1.       the TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) rules
The WTO rules do not permit a country to protect its people against a 
technology (or a TLD, as we see with Saudi Arabia and GAC protests) 
that is an international standard.
<http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbt_e.htm>http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbt_e.htm. 


This is why the ultimate weapon to fight States' Barriers to Trade is 
to erode the credibility of their legitimate policy objectives, such as:
the requirements for quality,
the respect of cultures and minorities
the protection of human health and safety,
or the environment.
  The war is then on the Governments and the slogan for the "market 
forces" is to protect ... Human Rights (through free speech in using 
international market standards, for example) against people's Governments.

One of the vectors is GNI 
(<http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/>http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/) 
where Microsoft, Google etc. decide on the people's best interest and 
defend their rights. This is far from democratically transparent 
technical standardization and network neutrality. Certainly civil and 
human rights are to be defended, but is it up to technical 
standardization bodies to defend them? In confusing the issues 
doesn't that harm the needed international standard technical 
credibility and lead to political restrictions affecting the free 
flow of information?
2.       The competition on us, the users
We (technical and civil society people) represent a real danger for 
industry leaders in being:
Uncontrollable international competition, potentially rogue, possible 
divergent definition of what is a "better" Internet (in RFC 3935 IETF 
Mission Statement).
Smart enough to introduce, propose, defend, and deploy more 
innovative and people centric architectural solutions (i.e. for a 
"3.0" information society that is "people centered, à caractère 
humain, centrada en la persona").
In the same way as the financial crisis is resulting from financially 
dominant people/entities (speculators and corporate interests), the 
international standardization mechanics is to protect market driven 
standardizing from lead users disrupting innovation.
5.       The strategic impact.

This battle is now conducted at the ITU, IAB/IETF, IEEE, ISO, 
Governments level.

This results in particular from the Dubai December meeting 
(<http://world2012.itu.int/>http://world2012.itu.int/) that is to 
revise the International Telecommunications Rules 
(<http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Pages/default.aspx>http://www.itu.int/en/wcit-12/Pages/default.aspx). 
In this debate, commercial leaders plan to oppose and negotiate with 
States alone, since Civil Society is absent and users are represented 
by their Governments.

In the Internet case, the IAB and IETF Chairs (the IAB Chair is a 
Microsoft employee) have prepared a draft document putting the (now 
ISOC affiliate) IETF in the commercial leaders' orbit.

Being the facilitator of the Civil Society IETF iucg at ietf.org mailing 
list and one of the bootstrappers of the "3.0" IUTF (Intelligent Use 
Task Force), I posed the question of us, the IUsers, of the 
non-consulted IUCG channel and of our emergent IUTF standardization 
pole and called for a WG/RFC3869bis (a WG dedicated to rewrite RFC 3869),
    * To consensually adapt the description of the IAB/IETF position 
regarding the standardization referents (market or people, commerce 
or sustainable development), as we do not think that market and 
commercial interests can develop without the support of the end-users.
    * To document what the IETF means in its mission statement of 
"influencing those who design, use, and manage the Internet for it to 
work *better*" and to protect us against the RFC3869 IAB identified 
threats of sole merchant sponsoring bias of the Internet R&D.
Our remarks have been acknowledged as part of the working file of the 
IAB (Track #202). We also maintain an information portal on the 
matter and our Civil Society Technical Rights in this area at 
<http://iutf.org/wiki/Modern_Global_Standards_Paradigm>http://iutf.org/wiki/Modern_Global_Standards_Paradigm.

The best place for debating and building up a Civil Society technical 
position that can really help as part of the IETF standardization 
process, at least to show that we actually feel concerned by the 
"constitution of the Internet" (the source code as documented by Dr. 
Lessig) is the non-WG (i.e. permanent) 
<mailto:iucg at ietf.org>iucg at ietf.org mailing list and helping us with 
the <http://iucg.org/wiki>http://iucg.org/wiki site.

6.       A civil society ethitechnical doctrine

More generally, there is a need for Civil Society to have a technical 
doctrine or at least mutually informed presence. The reason why is 
that technology choices are not ethically neutral.
    * As documented by the IAB RFC 3869, there are no technically 
rooted influences. They are commercial in the current episode, but 
they respond to (magnified) real political risks of influences. Civil 
Society has to make sure that the people's best interest is the reference.
    * Network neutrality is something difficult to enforce. The 
easiest way to get it is to get the technology designed in such a way 
that it is difficult or costly to not respect it (what is not the 
case today, but that a "3.0" evolution helps in making it very 
complex to filter the network).
    * A multilinguistic internet (the cybernetic of all the languages 
and cultures considered as equal on the common network) is to be 
explored and discussed. This is a typical civil society concern and, 
moreover, the real issue is our (we the people) relations to 
mecalanguages, i.e. our own native languages as spoken by our 
machines and in our anthtropobotic society ("on the internet, nobody 
knows I am a dog" or a machine). We did start in France an effort in 
that area, creating the MLTF, participating with MAAYA 
(<http://maaya.org>http://maaya.org) and ITU, UNESCO, SIL, Union 
Latine, Linguasphere, etc. This effort is to be resumed.
    * The civil society has accepted a stewardship inherited from the 
"1.0" legacy. Experience has been gained during the last decade 
regarding the various forms of governance tools, stakeholders, etc. 
common decision/trend processes, etc. while the 2.0 evolution and the 
3.0 preparation will make several of them obsolete.
    * One of the major concerns, since it is traditionally a main 
part of the Internet Governance, is certainly the plain technological 
deployment of the DNS, content centric networking, and the resulting 
opportunities and evolutions in the understanding of the domain name 
nature, use, economy, and impact on commercial, IPR, and societal usages.
To address these needs, a clear understanding of the very technical 
nature of the Internet tool and of its cons and pros is necessary. We 
cannot object to politics if they do not understand the internet 
nature when they discuss SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, HADOPI, etc. legislations 
and act as if we are actually no better than them.

The IUCG is certainly the best place to discuss and document the 
Internet as a global and coherent system, under the control of 
engineers, in a way that civil society and decision and lawmakers can 
understand and master it.

Help would certainly be welcome, in every language that governments 
and users use, as documented in ISO 3166.

The best way to join the IUCG and to help us (me) is at 
<http://iucg.org/wiki/>http://iucg.org/wiki/

jfc