[1817] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ANS Letter to the Internet Community
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark Seiden)
Wed Jan 1 01:41:00 1992
From: mis@seiden.com (Mark Seiden)
To: rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams)
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 1:13:32 EST
Cc: weis@ans.net, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9112312255.AA13035@rodan.UU.NET>; from "Rick Adams" at Dec 31, 91 5:55 pm
> Lastly, what ANS choses to do with its profits is completely irrevelant to
> the issues, but makes for great rationalization. You're either commercial
> or not. You can't occupy some area in between by claiming to be
> going good things with your profits.
>
i see this as quite relevant to some of the issues, namely questions
of how to finance future needed infrastructure, value-added services,
research, or even just do "good works".
i see no other commercial (and for-profit) providers of internet
services willing to make some statement about what they will (or would
do) with any portion of their net profits.
(if i were unwilling to make any such statement i might also claim
the entire issue to be "irrelevant".)
some of this furor i find pretty ironic as a cynical observer of the
fray...
as i remember, psi substantially leveraged itself into importance by
virtue of a ny state government contract, and continues to run their
network using facilities which seem to be (freely or substantially?)
shared with psinet, at least through the region in which nysernet
operates.
uunet (sub 0) seems to have started out as a nonprofit, and yet
appears to have converted all its operations and customers (arguably
its assets) into those of a for-profit (uunet sub 1). (i can't
remember what the actual corporate names are, sorry.) i used to think
that sort of transformation wasn't possible.
(of course none of this addresses issues of competence or performance
of any of the providers.)
--
mark seiden, mis@seiden.com, 1-(203) 329 2722 (voice), 1-(203) 322 1566 (fax)
