[council] Interpretation of whois purpose

[Ross Rader]

tony.ar.holmes at bt.com wrote:
> Avri
>  
> I appreciate you clearly stating what this means for you.
>  
> I'm beginning to think it would have been a great help if we'd all written down exactly what we thought the interpretations were before the vote. Maybe then we wouldn't be in this situation! 
>  
> Unfortunately over the years that the task force has struggled along, positions hardened and as we've seen from recent exchanges on the mailing list even reasoned and rationale dialogue has become difficult. We should all learn from this experience and make sure we don't get in to this situation again.

I struggle with the value of the various interpretations that have been 
floated by everyone. Indeed, there will always be differing 
interpretations of anything that gets decided on and written down - this 
is the very nature of the written word (there are at least four 
different interpretations of the word "interpreting" for instance - to 
explain, to conceive, to present meaning, to translate, etc...)

I think what we need to focus on is how these words are applied in the 
context of the rest of the work. Instead of assessing and analysing the 
range of interpretations that might exist (and explaining how we might 
agree or disagree with each) let's instead try to come to an agreement 
how we collectively have chosen to understand these words and what the 
practical implications of that understanding are.

I suppose what I'm saying is that the current focus on the absolute 
meaning of Formulation #1 as it relates to Formulation #2 isn't really 
high value work. Instead, I think we need to concentrate our effort on 
understanding what the implications of Formulation #1 are as it relates 
to the work ahead of us. If it turns out that Formulation #1 is too 
broad or too restrictive for our purposes (or becomes out of scope, or 
irrrelevant, or judicially troublesome) then let's make sure that TF 
understands that it needs to communicate these challenges back to us so 
that we can provide them with some reasonable guidance.

I don't honestly believe that progress is as hard to come by as some 
might think. If the task force and its participants can focus on 
developing a shared view as it relates to the work items TOR, then 
progress can definitely be made.

Regards,

-- 

                        -ross rader