[Chapter-delegates] Application to form an InterPlanetary Networking Chapter

[Michael Snell]

Hi Mark. Hope things are well with you.

 Let me try to address your concern (and Peter Koch's concern).

 From ISOC’s website: “An Internet Society Chapter brings together
individual members of the Internet Society who share an interest and belief
in the Internet Society’s principles and mission and who are committed to
furthering the Internet Society’s goals and objectives within your
geographic or special interest area.”  The words “or special interest area”
certainly seem to say that geography isn't the only thing that can define
an ISOC chapter—as your chapter certainly demonstrates.

 Our interest area is global in scope, not aligned with any particular
geographic region. Indeed, it would not be wise to associate IPNSIG with
any geographical region because that would inherently discourage membership
from outside the region. To paraphrase Paul Brooks "If we're going to be a
SIG or project associated with a Chapter-- what chapter would you
propose?" While relatively close to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena (about 6-7 hours driving time), that’s only one of the
geographical centers of research and interest in interplanetary networking.
There are others centered on the East Coast, in Sweden, in Ireland, in
Greece, in Australia and other locations around the globe. Restricting it
to a project or SIG associated with the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (as
it currently is) makes it problematic to host events that do not limit
participation to the Northern California region. We are planning a major
IPN event at Google HQ in Mountain View next January—but we are also
planning one in the Washington, D.C. area late next year, and have just
started discussions with the N4C community in Europe about hosting an event
there in 2015. We are doing this precisely because we recognize that our
target audience and our membership is global.

Beyond that, technical concerns are often not just technical. There is an
important societal concern element here that is core to ISOC values: the
openness and transparency of the technical standards that drive the
Internet. It is not an issue today. There really is no Internet in outer
space-- yet. But we believe there should be, and that the same openness,
transparency and trust issues will exist. It is not in the interest of the
people of the earth to have space data communications remain the
prerogative of competing nation states. Commercialization of space will not
supplant sovereign state "ownership" of space exploration and eventual use
of space resources without it.

Work done by IPNSIG members over the past years has planted the seeds of
this movement towards transparency and openness. Standards have been
developed, not in secret government labs-- but under the auspices of IRTF.
NASA has publicly released the core IPN software as open source code. The
first chairman of IPNSIG (Adrian Hooke from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
founded the Consultative Committee for Space Data systems, whose membership
includes space agencies from almost every space-faring nation on the
planet. That organization is in the process of adopting the Delay &
Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) suite of protocols, which will foster
cooperation and collaboration by the world's space agencies, and pave the
way for a trusted, trustworthy space infrastructure that will allow for the
peaceful exploration and potential use of off-planet resources.

Furthermore, the application of these DTN technologies towards solving
terrestrial problems is gaining momentum. The N4C community in the European
Union has applied them towards monitoring wildlife in remote regions, and
there have been several proposals to use DTN to provide inexpensive, secure
network services to remote areas.

We believe that the interest and impact of IPN is global, and that,
therefore, a global ISOC chapter is the best solution to both allow
interested parties access to the chapter, and to allow for global
collaboration with regional chapters to further the development and
deployment of DTN technologies. It deserves and needs a chapter's resources
dedicated to it, rather than continuing as a project of SF Bay ISOC.



Mike Snell

President, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter

Secretary/Treasurer, IPNSIG


On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:37 AM, Urban, Mark (CDC/OCOO/OCIO/ITSO) <
fka2 at cdc.gov> wrote:

> The Disability and Special Needs Chapter shares the same concerns as
> ISOC.DE. As the only Global Chapter, we can recognize the occasional need
> for a unique Chapter environs.  However, in our case, the reasoning for the
> chapter was based upon unique societal needs, rather than a technical
> interest.  A nonvoting SIG (Special Interest Group) might be the more
> appropriate venue for consideration of these problems.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark D. Urban
> Vice Chair, ISOC DSN Chapter.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org [mailto:
> chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Peter Koch
> Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 10:22 AM
> To: ISOC Chapter Delegates
> Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Application to form an InterPlanetary
> Networking Chapter
>
> On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 07:27:10AM +0000, Sabrina Wilmot wrote:
>
> > The following application for an InterPlanetary Networking Chapter has
> been received. It is being sent to this list for peer comment and review.
>
> > FYI: The group had started their work in a Special Interest Group
> ("IPNSIG") and is currently formally a project of the San Francisco Bay
> Area Chapter. The applicants state:
>
> ISOC.DE applauds the initiative with the greatest respect towards the
> well renowned proponents.  That said, we would like to ask for a
> clarification regarding chapter eligibility.
> While there is at least one prominent example of a non-geographic chapter,
> the initiative appears to be more of a project nature than a cross region
> ISOC member organisation.  No doubt it deserves support from ISOC, but we
> remain unconvinced that a chapter is the best choice, strategically.
>
> -Peter Koch, ISOC.DE, Member of the Board
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