[1788] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Congressional Record Appears to Speak to Narrow NREN Control
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bob Sutterfield)
Thu Dec 26 07:10:44 1991
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 07:08:14 -0500
From: Bob Sutterfield <bob@roughy.MorningStar.Com>
To: cook@tmn.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Gordon Cook's message of 26 Dec 91 00:03:12 EST (Thu) <9112260003.AA25391@tmn.com>
Reply-To: bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield)
Date: 26 Dec 91 00:03:12 EST (Thu)
From: cook@tmn.com (Gordon Cook)
On page s 17730 we read Sec 201 (a) 2 "to the extent that colleges,
universities and libraries cannot connect to the network with the
assistance of the private sector the national science foundation
shall have the primary responsibility for assisting colleges,
universities and libraries to connect to the network; 3 the
National science Foundation shall serve as the primary source of
information on access to and use of the Network...
I'm not sure how these two clauses relate. Does this mean that the
NSF will be the sole purveyor of domain names and address space across
the entire IP-connected Internet? If so, when will the US military
hand over that responsibility? Or does it mean only to the extent
that the private sector is unable to provide names and addresses (does
the private sector provide any now, except under authority delegated
from the US military)?
Or should we interpret clause #2 as relating to funding, and clause #3
as relating to publishing newsletters and user documentation? It
seems to me that a chunk of the address space and a registered domain
name are the most fundamental and valuable pieces of "information on
access to and use of the Network."
