BPN 1734: Fourth Dutchman in the Internet Hall of Fame

The Internet Society (ISOC) has admitted the Dutchman Jaap Akkerhuis of NLnet Labs to the Internet Hall of Fame. Akkerhuis began his career at the Mathematical Centre, which is now CWI. Membership is an honour given to people who have made an exceptional contribution to the development and advancement of the global internet. Other internet pioneers on the roll include Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee. The announcement increases the Hall of Fame's membership to 103, of whom four are Dutch.

Photograph: Olav Kolkman
 
Connecting the technical community worldwide
Jaap Akkerhuis's admission to the Internet Hall of Fame is in recognition of the tireless work he has done on the internet's development since the eighties. When the internet was in its infancy, he was constantly travelling between research centres, internet service providers (ISPs) and registries across Europe and the United States. Akkerhuis is particularly famous for his level-headed approach and his many technical and organisational contributions down the years. ISOC consequently regards him as an innovator of the technical community. In his current role at NLnet Labs, Akkerhuis remains extremely active in organisations such as ICANN, IETF, RIPE, ISOC and CENTR. He has been a member of ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee since its creation, for example.

Senior Research Engineer at NLnet Labs
Since 2004, Akkerhuis has been Senior Research Engineer at NLnet Labs, an independent, non-profit R&D foundation. The organisation is known around the world for the software it develops for the Domain Name System (DNS) – a core component of the internet, which translates domain names into the numeric IP addresses used by computers. NLnet Labs' software is widely used by ISPs and other domain name administrators. The organisation therefore makes a major contribution to the security and stability of the internet as a global communication infrastructure. 

Involvement with CWI and SIDN 
Akkerhuis began his career in 1977 at the Mathematical Centre - now Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) - in Amsterdam, which later developed into a major hub of European computer networks. After working in the United States for about eight years, he joined NLnet, the first Dutch ISP, in 1995. From 1999 to 2004, Akkerhuis was at SIDN, the organisation created in 1996 by Piet Beertema (CWI), Boudewijn Nederkoorn (SURFnet) and Ted Lindgreen (NLnet) to manage the .nl domain. During that period, the number of .nl domain names grew to more than a million and SIDN rose to national and international prominence.

Fourth Dutch person in the Internet Hall of Fame
The Internet Hall of Fame was established in 2012 to honour the visionaries, leaders and geniuses who have made outstanding contributions to the development and advancement of the global internet. Anyone anywhere in the world can nominate a person for membership. ISOC considers all incoming nominations against a prescribed set of requirements and assessment criteria. The final decision on admission is made by the Internet Hall of Fame Advisory Board and a select group of existing members. Jaap Akkerhuis is the fourth Dutch person added to the illustrious list of members. The first two were Kees Neggers (former CEO of SURFnet) and Teus Hagen (former Chair of NLnet), admitted to the Hall of Fame in 2013. The following year, they were joined by Erik Huizer, CTO at SURFnet. 

Source: ISOC press release

BPN 1145 New internet domain names

He had told me that he was going to attend the meeting of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in Paris. The meeting lasted till last Thursday. Upon his return to Gent in belgium, I put two questions to my World Summit Award colleague and friend Rudi Vansnick (left on photograph, taken at the GP circuit in Bahrain in 2005). Rudi is president - CEO Internet Society Belgium and vice-chair ISOC-ECC.

JB: From some news items I understood that the domain question was high on the list of the ICANN meeting.
RV: Indeed, the following topics where listed on the priority list and have been discussed largely within the different constituencies during the ICANN meetings :- Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)- new gTLDs (generic Top-Level Domains)The launch of the IDN is a very important step in the expansion of the existing Internet. Use of Arabic, Cyrillic and other non-Latin scripts will make the Internet world accessible for non-Latin speaking people. People who do not speak English or other Latin-based languages will in the near future register and use domain names with characters that reflect their preferred language of communication. IDNs already exist at the second-level and work is underway to extend that to the top-level domains for both gTLDs (generic) and for ccTLDs (country code). Sample of an IDN url : http://نمونہ.آزمایشی/صفحہ_اول or and email : mailtest@مثال.إختبار . The impact of the IDN on the Internet will be quite important and will involve the global world.Introducing new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) is central to fostering choice and competition in domain registration services, and as such is significant to the promotion of ICANN’s core values. Since 2000, there have been several new gTLDs added to the DNS, including general purpose domains such as .info or .mobi and .aero. Each new gTLD must be proposed by an organisation, which will launch and administer it if approved. To be selected to operate a new gTLD the organisation must satisfy the requirements ICANN set out. Among other criteria, the organisation should have strong technical abilities, a sound business plan and a commitment to implement ICANN policies.

JB: I understood that ICANN talked about other domain extensions. But how does this question relates to the IPv6.
RV: Ipv6 is designated to be the successor for Ipv4 that boasts the ability to support billions times more than IPv4. It is a fact, within a few years all IPv4 addresses will be used. The implementation of new gTLDs, the usage of IDN will certainly affect the consumption of IPv4 addresses. Up till today many hardware vendors are not IPv6 compliant, work only in one or the other way but mostly not together (IPv4 & IPv6). Software vendors are progressing more quickly and as such will certainly force hardware vendors to speed up the convergence and technical functionalities of existing and new equipment. The impact of IPv6 on ISP's will be quite important, but also for registries and registrars it will imply they have enough knowledge. At-Large (in which I'm active - EURALO) has a working group focussing to enable At-Large to work with other ICANN stakeholders to ensure that all the necessary works be done. Questions as "Are developing countries with huge potential of growth and/or lots of population not being pushed into disadvantageous situation?", "Isn't there a fear of remaining precious IPv4 addresses to become way very expensive with speculation and/or un-authorized trading outside RIR policy framework?".

Blog Posting Number: 1145

Tags: domain

Dutch Open Source consultation (2)

I received a summary of the Dutch Open Source consultation document today. In the coming weeks I will make summaries of the individual contributions. I received also a general summary which calls upon the government not to drag its tail any longer.

The government has to set a date when the introduction and the use of open standards should be enforced, even in combination with sanctions. That is one of the most important conclusions of the public consultation about the government policy ICT & OS/OSS, organized by the Dutch chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC.nl), the foundation Livre, Media Update and foundation Holland Open. From the consultation round it has become clear that an overwhelming majority (86%) thinks that the government should oblige its contractors to fulfil a list of desirable, less desirable and absolutely undesirable database formats. A majority of 90% thinks that the Dutch government should contribute to the standardization work such as W3C, IETF and OASIS; the government should also play an active part in the development of relevant open source software for its own activities. Government should be reserve a percentage of its ICT budget to track, develop or have developed as well as stimulate open source software.

In education individual closed commercial applications should be stopped and the digital socialisation should be started up seriously. Many respondents think that the present ICT education consists of training people to execute tricks in certain software packages and not in the teaching of real skills.

The most important priority should lie in a clear choice in favour of specific open standards and open source software, where possible, so that software manufacturers can produce the needed software. Software which should be developed or new to install software should make use of open standards. Use of non-standards should be frozen and new closed formats should not be allowed. Besides, a multi-platform should be enforced. When this is not happen, robustness, safety, innovation power and economic interests of The Netherlands will be harmed.

Blog Posting Number: 782

Tags: OSS

Dutch Open Source consultation (1)

I am not in The Netherlands, but I wish I was there today. This afternoon a consultation document about Open Source was presented to the Dutch vice-minister of Economic Affairs. It is not the hottest thing on the list of the vice-minister, but he wanted to make time for it as he considers it an important subject.

And he better considers it an important subject as in the past years lip service was paid to the subject, but no real actions came about. So some months ago the idea came up to organise conference around the theme of Open Source. This was not new, but it would have been a great occasion to explore the opportunities in government and democracy. The idea of a conference was not very welcome with civil servants, who had received the task to write a document for parliament telling about the priorities and plans for the future.

This was in fact unbelievable. In an open source environment civil servant do not push citizens to participate in writing a policy document on Open Source and the future of it in The Netherlands and Europe. At that time the idea came up to use internet and start a open consultation and offer this to a cabinet minister. And thus the open consultation round came about. Together with the Dutch ISOC chapter, the foundation Livre and Media Update and foundation Holland Open a press release was sent out.

Of course the initiators were afraid that no one would jump to the opportunity, except for one lonely heart, deploring the negligence of the past cabinets. But to their surprise the anxious expectations were not met. More than 30 documents arrived with surprising proposals and potential policy measures. So the vice-minister of Economic Affairs - and not of Internal Affairs as planned - did accept the document.

So the ball is now in his court. He will have the document of the civil servants, but also a document of concerned and well informed citizens. In principle he has now everything in his hands in order to set out a policy for the coming cabinet period and execute it; for that was what was lacking since the policy document and motions of 2002.

It is too simple to say that Open Source would save the country a lot of money. But is is certain that Open Source would generate a lot of useful software for government, schools and libraries as well as for citizens.

Blog Posting Number: 781

Tgas: OSS

Bharain eContent Award Competition (5)

This morning I landed at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport at 6.00 am. It was a quiet flight and everything went to schedule, despite the fact that I changed my flight late.

The competition was completed yesterday with the recording of the 24 nominees and 4 special mentions. Having taken a photograph of the group of jurors, we said goodbye to each other. Of course, I hope to be back in Bahrain some day. This morning I received a series of photographs which reflect the jury event of the past days. (Just for contrast, I received today also a group photograph of the CMID07 conference in Lapland; I put them next to each other for contrast).









Reflecting on the content of the entries, it was clear that the category e-Business is the most important category of the competition. It is the only category which has 5 nominations. Followers are e-Culture, e-Entertainment, e-Government. E-Health and e-Inclusion, while in e-Science not one entry was nominated. It says something about the interest of the Bahraini. They are a busy business people and are serious about e-Government (more serious than many a European government). But the categories e-Culture and e-Entertainment do have 4 nominations in each category, but the spread of the subjects is not very strong. E-Culture has of course different entries than for example Egypt, which have the pyramids and the pharaohs, while Bahrain has little history. E-Entertainment has interesting entries, but games are not included. E-Learning has three interesting nominations and this category is improving over BEA 2005. The categories of e-Health and e-Inclusion have only two entries, while the entries in e-Science did not yield one nomination.

I personally conclude that the Bahraini are busy with e-Business and e-Government, in other words transactions and processes. Real content categories like e-Culture, e-Entertainment and e-Learning need improvement as do e-Health and e-Inclusion. The entries in e-Science did not come up to par at all.

In conclusion can be said that there are a few nomination which might be entered into the World Summit Award and will be serious contenders. It can also be said that there is still a lot of room for improvement of content. To raise the level of content some serious development and education is needed. Bahrain has the advantage that the lingo is Arabic; so there is no limit in the size of users (in comparison, the Dutch language limits itself to 22 million people worldwide).

When I left yesterday for the third time, I left very good friends like Waheed, Achmed and Abdullah, but also Leena and her organisation team. The contact with the jurors broadened my scope about life on an island in the Guld region and about ideals for a population. I hope to be back soon.

Blog Posting Number: 742

Tags: content competition, World Summit Award

Bahrain eContent Award Competition (3)

Today there is good and bad news. The bad news is that my Dell Latitude X300 went dead. I can not start it up again. Tomorrow a techie from Dell Bahrain will have a look at it. The good news is that today I celebrate an anniversary of this blog (let there be pomp and ceremony as in the hotel lobby - see illustration). In 2005 I started this blog on Labour Day and have written a posting every day. And as I am enjoying it, I sign for another year.

The jury deliberations yesterday took more than 12 hours. The jurors finished the first round of judging and after the necessary administrative procedures, there were some 50 entries left, which were up for scrutiny. Eventually the jurors have to come up with maximally 5 entries per category. The debate about the nominees started late in the afternoon and continued into the late evening. Our Quwait jury observer Ms Manar Al Hashash (27) has left the competition as she has been asked by her government to be present at a meeting with the Japanese prime minister. Gabi Deek will leave today.

Having finished for the day, I had dinner in the hotel with Gabi Deek, the invited moderator of the Bahrain eContent Award Competition. He was also the moderator of the first BEA competition in 2005. He is a general manager for a computer company in Lebanon and is president of the Lebanese Professional Computer Association. He is a Lebanese and speaks Arabic, English and French. And he does it with a lot of passion. Gabi has also been a juror of the World Summit Award competitions in 2003 and 2005. He is really suited for this job.

So we had a late dinner at the hotel. And as he is a gourmet he could live it up with a grand buffet dinner. We got to talk about the Lebanese-Israeli war. As I have never seen a war nor have been close to a warzone (the closes was most likely driving through Northen Ireland in 1985), I was eager to hear how it influenced his life. For what do you do; where computer centres hit; was the telecom infrastructure paralysed. And of course the question comes up: what do you do while a war is going on; do you have a job; what do you do all day. He told that he had been doing something else than being busy with with computers and computer projects for four months. He had been working for the refugees in his country, housing them in schools and finding funds to provide them with food and shelter. Now he is back in the computer industry and everything is booming again. Computers centres were not really hit; so there is not much of a replacement market as one would think. But business is booming again.

Blog Posting Number: 740

Tags: content competition, World Summit Award

Bahrain eContent Award Competition (2)

So I saw yesterday Bahrain again by daylight and of course by sunshine. I looked around from hotel room facing a busy street crossing (oh, yes they have traffic jams around 19.30h over here) and an imposing mosk (see photograh). But this was all there in 2005. But my friend Waheed told me the story that when the Gulf Hotel was built, it was built on an peninsula. These days it is surrounded by reclaimed land and this reclamation program is still continuing (which is a good thing for the Dutch construction companies working in the Gulf).

In fact I am surprised how much the skyline has changed. Especially the new financial centre is pressing its mark on Manamah, the capital of the kingdom of Bahrain. The peaks of the financial dominate the skyline now; it was still under construction in 2005. But the buildings are now finished and look like sails of ships leaving the harbour.

The ISOC chapter have their own offices. In a residential area they now have a venue with meeting and training rooms. It is a comfortable venue. It is also a sign that ICT is taking a more important place in the country and in the region. I heard that Google had been talking with Bahrain companies in order to establish a data centre for the Middle East; only proble formed the telcom connections due to a monopoly position of the incumbent telco Batelco.

But it is not only the waterfront that has changed. But also Manamah has changed. I saw more security on the streets and in shops. And this is not surprising in 2005, when I was here for the first time, and later uproars and riots have been seen by the Bahraini. The cause of the uproars and riots are not completely clear, but they have to do with poverty and employment and religious factions (Shi'ites mainly from Iranian origine and Sunites; in fact I saw a taxi carrying a Hezbollah logo).

The Bahrain society exists of poles: from the very liberal to the dogmatic. Kids can be clothed like youths in Amsterdam, London or Paris: sexy and provoking. But on the other hand you may see women with burqas, with a slit giving way to the eyes too look around in society like a periscope.

The jury deliberations will continue today. The jurors will finish the first round of eliminating the projects which scored low. When that process is finished we will have a plenary, discussing the results of the first selection. We also will have the panels changing to other categories and another set of projects. Once that is done the jurors will concentrate on the new set of projects. Advantage is that they can spend more time on the projects.

Blog Posting Number: 739

Tags: content competition, World Summit Award

Bahrain eContent Award Competition (1)

Today I am in Bahrain. Yesterday I flew from Amsterdam to Manama. It was a nice flight, especially over Europe, going over Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary. Especially Rumenia was great. I flew over Cluj (the flight navigator told me so) and I had a great look at Bucharest, especially the city lay-out with half circles endind in the river; some day I must go there to have a look on the ground and talk with my friends there.

At the Gulf Hotel I met Waheed and Abdullah from Bahrain. Waheed has been a jury member for the World Summit Award in 2003 and 2005 and has become a very good friend of mine; Abdullah was in the team of the first winning Bahrain project and has been a supporter eversince of the World Summit Award. (Of course the ISOC chapter in Bahrain has shown it self to be very committed.) And at last I met Gabi Deek again, my Lebanese friend, who will be the moderator of the Bahrain eContent Award. In the night Ms Manar Al Hashash, the 2005 WSA jury member from Quwait arrived.

So this morning we were all set to go for the jury deliberations for the Bahrain eContent Awards (BEA). For the second time they now have organised the competition. In 2005 they had about 150 entries; this time they doubled the entries to 300 registered entries. (I can not believe this; in The Netherlands we can not organise a content competition yielding more than 60 entries and the last two years we had to call the editions of the Europrix.nl off due to a lack of entries). eCommerce is way ahead of all the categories; it is followed by e-Government, e-Entertainment and Culture. They jury consists of civil servants working for government administrations, teaching staff and students at the University of Bahrain and people working in computing and technology. The venue for the jury deliberations are held in the ISOC House.

It took a while this morning to get the circus going. With some 300 entries and 13 jurors, the organisation of panels had to be taken care off. Once that was decided, technical issues had to be taken care off. I had an opportunity in order to go through some of the websites and get a discussion going on the criteria to be used such as content, accessibility, value added, attractiveness of design, quality of craftsmanship and strategic importance. After lunch the real work of sifting started and the first results started to be entered.

Blog Posting Number: 738

Tags: content competition, World Summit Award