On Sat, 20 Sep 1997, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
There was unanimous agreement by the participants that RIPE should nominate a European candidate to fill an iPOC seat.
This action item thus originates not in an attempt to impose a "European" agenda, but from what was understood as an invitation to become more involved.
Which I think is what IAB resolved by appointing Patrik.
I think I, and some other people, have been afraid when hearing that "Europe want a European candidate", that people in Europe want, and will, create the same kind of EU-Centric view on things as "we in Europe" think is bad with the US. Is the next step that people in Asia will look as bad on us in Europe as we look at the US? No, I think, and see in what is written in this thread, that the important thing is to get people from _non_-US. Unfortunately, it is so easy to generalize people and their opinions from where they live, and just because so many global solutions designed in the US has through history been very very local people think that _all_ people from the US think like that, still (people on POC don't!). So, a couple of remarks: + POC/PAB/CORE are global organizations, like IETF, IAB, ISOC, ITU, WIPO etc + The representatives from global organizations is representing that organization to 100%, which means that the person have to have a global view on things + I think/hope people in RIPE are saying that we need non-US people active and not only people from the US (for historical reasons) I _hope_ that the view from RIPE is not to push especially European interests, but truly global interests. I personally think RIPE and many others want these organizations, ISOC, IAB, IANA etc to show explicitely that they really are international, by electing people that can have a global view, which means of course stating explicitely that some US-centric things have to be stopped. I.e. I think this is a lack of confidence that these organizations are global. This is solved by having these organizations electing people which are not from the US, i.e. for example me. So, I do represent IAB, as is Rob, so I neither represent RIPE or EU, but I live here in Europe, I am used to work with an ISO-3166 country-code TLD, and I have been working a lot with the problems we have in Sweden because "com" et.al. exists, and I do know about the problems and benefits from working in something like the EU.
Not I. Perhaps Patrik. I am just an outsie observer at this point :-)
I am coming to the RIPE meeting on thursday. I'll remind you though that there will be an open meeting with POC in Europe in late november, so this will _not_ be the "presentation of POC and gTLDs" you might ask for. A lot of things are happening as we type regarding starting operations so see the visit on thursday as one occation when I come to RIPE to listen to your concerns.
(Don't forget the WIPO and ITU reps who live and work in Geneva who also sit on the iPOC - and you get to a total of 4 resident Europeans currently on the iPOC - a number way out of proportion to Europe's size)
I really think this is a red herring. Residency is not the issue.
I don't think it is a red herring. If someone carries an EU passport, pays taxes in an EU country and has lived in an EU country for 12 years doesn't that qualify him/her to represent European interests?
If not residency and knowledge is the issue, then what is it? Why should the EU have an explicit representative? As an inhabitant of a country in the EU, I don't want the EU, or representatives from the EU, behave like people from the US did some 20 years ago. We should have learned and should behave better. Especially on the Internet which is a truly global way of communicating. The same thing for RIPE (as RIPE and EU have different countries as member nations). I also, as a last point, think it is bad if RIPE want representatives from "Europe" as RIPE is covering also large parts of Africa and Asia. I.e. representatives from RIPE is one thing, but European membership is something different.
The same, and very sincerely. I have a feeling that we may be involved here in the beginning of what I have sometimes heard called "a violent agreement".
I enjoy every minute. -Hank
Yeah, is not this fun? Regards, Patrik -------- Logged at Sun Sep 21 10:09:02 MET DST 1997 ---------