[rpd] Sami's status as a co-chair

Thu Dec 6 07:09:52 UTC 2018

Honestly,

Had I realized that Sami’s term had expired I would have always raised this, and you will find if you look back at my track record, that where I have seen a failing in process or bylaw adherence, I have always raised it.  The reality is though – I would have not taken the time or the effort to be watching the Dakar meetings and going over things with such a fine tooth comb had we not been in the situation where we are with this policy.  I have long maintained that this policy is dangerous – that it is ill defined – that it ambiguous – that it allows for situations where it can be abused to target individuals and member companies – I’ve said that at meeting after meeting and many of the things I have said have never been addressed (as with many other things that people have said that have been summarily dismissed).

Your email however – I need to draw your attention to one particular part of it – because while it was stated in the context of Sami’s term as co-chair – It highlights exactly what the problems with this policy are.

Yes Maybe according to the evidence available that I have seen so far Andrew is right. But the motivation is obvious and wrong.

You see – under this policy – because of the lack of definition about what will be audited, how it will be audited, and the evidence that is required to initiate an audit – all it would take would be for some smart person to figure that someone, back in 2005, applied for space for dialup users – and then changed their technology to FTTX because technology changed – and by the letter of the v4 allocation policy – their space would then be invalid and they could use that to trigger a review and potentially – by the letter of the law – invalidate the persons allocations.  Irrespective of the fact that the company is still using the space to the benefit of the continent and their users – irrespective of the fact that it would not be in the interest of the community of users serviced by that company.  Technically the evidence would be correct – but the motivation of review and the motivation for stripping someone of their space would be abusive and wrong – and in this policy there are no protections against this.

Now – the authors may attempt to argue the policy allows rectification – sadly – the v4 allocation policy doesn’t however.  I quote:

5.5.1.11 of the CPM states:

An assignment is therefore invalid if it is not registered in the database and if the purpose for which it was registered has changed or no longer holds.

In a world of changing technology – I can guarantee you that *technically* by the letter of the law – this would invalidate a massive portion of the assignments of the continent – but up until now – sanity has prevailed, because people are smart enough to realize that if someone stated that they are going to be running a dialup user base and moved towards a newer technology at higher speeds and of more benefit to the customers on the ground it would be extremely stupid to try and enforce this to the letter.  In the face of the review policy however, when you have community members who are looking for reasons to get someone else reviewed – there are no more guarantees.  This is *deadly* dangerous and soooo open to abuse – and is not in the interests of the internet ecosystem on the continent.

Your emails effectively says – “Andrew was looking for issues because of personal motivations”, and while I dispute that notion, since I believe I found issues that were relevant while gathering evidence of a broken process as regards this policy, and then submitted that evidence, rather than specifically targeting Sami, your very arguments against what I have done – are a case in point argument against mine, and many others, concern with this policy, which has for 3 years had people come to the microphone and say – this policy – is designed to target specific individuals and companies – in the guise of a public interest policy – which neither myself, nor a substantial number of people at every meeting with where this policy has been rejected believe is necessary, valid, or being created with the correct motivations.

Andrew

On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 12:28 AM Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com<mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:

On Dec 5, 2018, at 12:12 , ABDULKARIM AYOPO OLOYEDE <oloyede.aa at unilorin.edu.ng<mailto:oloyede.aa at unilorin.edu.ng>> wrote:

Dear all,
I would have wished to remain quite and keep watching things but it seams sometimes it's better to talk.

True. This may not, however, be one of those times, but that’s entirely your decision.

The only reason why Sami's position is being challenged now is because he took a deciosn that some people are not happy with and they now feel cutting his head off is better.

I disagree with Sami’s and Dewole’s collective decision in this case. However, I have not, nor have I seen anyone else advocate decapitation of either of them, nor is anyone questioning Dewole’s standing. As such, I do not think you can fairly characterize those claiming that Sami’s term expired as related to the decision he made.

Frankly, I don’t care all that much whether his term expired or not, so I’m not going to weigh into that particular drama other than to say that regardless of motivation, the facts appear to support what Andrew is saying and if Andrew’s factual statements are true, then, there is an issue to be addressed regardless of how one feels about this particular decision.

This is just rediculus. Can we not separate issues and always have to degenerate to this level.

Not sure what you mean by separating issues. I don’t think anyone is trying to combine the question of Sami’s term expiration with the question of last call except to the extent that they are inexorably linked in such a way that if his term expired prior to the decision, then his participation in the decision process creates a legitimate concern about the validity of said decision.

This was exactly my point in Tunisia. We need personality change not a change in policy cos some people would always want to have thier personal interest protected against the collective interest.

While I believe your statement is partially true, I do not think it applies to the opposition to this policy nearly so much as to the proponents.

While I won’t defend Andrew’s actions in most cases, nor will I defend his personality… I find both rather reprehensible quite often and I tell him so directly on a regular basis (usually in private)… Nonetheless,  when he offers facts with evidence to back up those factual claims, it makes little sense to dispute them just because you don’t like the way he presents them.

Owen

Thanks
Abdulkarim

On Tue, 4 Dec 2018, 17:50 Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com<mailto:Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> wrote:
Hi All,

I want to clarify something – to be very sure.

If I am correct – there was no election of a PDP co-chair in Tunisia.  Can someone please confirm that?  Because if there was no election – we only have ONE chair at the moment – and Sami’s status as a co-chair has lapsed and he cannot adjudicate on consensus.

I say this – because in Dakar – and for those of you that were not there, please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWTApl4QHfY<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWTApl4QHfY> at about 13 minutes in, Sami’s position was granted as interim only – and only for the following 6 months until the next PDP.

So – unless there was an election called – and video evidence of this – Sami is no longer eligible to act in the position of co-chair – since his mandate was not granted by this community on the floor of a meeting, and as per the legal counsel at the Dakar meeting – any position into which Sami entered – was only valid until the November meeting, and the co-chair goes on, on record on the microphone to further state that Sami was only appointed “Until the next PDP meeting”

Sami – on that note, thank you for your service as the interim co-chair over the preceeding 6 months.

Andrew

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--
Dr. Abdulkarim A.Oloyede. B. Eng (BUK), M.Sc (York), PhD (York), R.Eng, A+
Senior Lecturer, Department of Telecommunications Science, University of Ilorin, Nigeria
Vice Chairman, Telecommunications  Development Advisory Group (TDAG), International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
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