[CPWG] RFC: The Debate on Policy and Mechanism Again

[gopal]

Dear All,

Last week, during the CPWG meeting, the sharp discrimination between policy and mechanism was mooted again.

To the best of my knowledge, the separation of policy and mechanism stems from design principle in computer science.  I subscribe to this principle.

Please consider these working definitions.

Policy: a set of ideas or a plan of what to do.

Mechanism: a process, technique, or system for achieving a result.

I agree that policy is being made by those who had a through grounding in the related mechanism and so it should work most of the times. However, getting to the policy from the mechanism (s) is becoming arbitrarily difficult. The very nature of computation as an idea is the primary cause for this.

Bringing policy and mechanism together has the following concerns:

#1. It makes policy rigid and harder to change in response to user requirements.

#2. Trying to change policy has a strong tendency to destabilize the mechanisms.

If we do not bring them together, the exercise will always be fragmented with the policy becoming a veneer to indicate a sort of binding of several mechanism.

For the internet governance, it is always a tussle between keeping Policy and Mechanism "together and separate". The coming togeher can happen only if one includes the design.

Hence, I suggest that "Technology" and "Managerial" concenrs may be separated and we work on interoprable interfaces.

We may then have the "One World One Internet" with more tangible outcomes for all the stakeholders.

Your comments are most welcome.

Sincerely,




Gopal T V
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Dr. T V Gopal
Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
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Anna University
Chennai - 600 025, INDIA
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