[5] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Cygnus / Alternet dispute has settled down
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Gilmore)
Tue Oct 16 09:50:29 1990
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 90 03:18:48 PDT
From: gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore)
To: com-priv@psi.com
At Interop, I met with Rick and other Alternet reps, as well as with
other Little Garden members. Everyone was surprisingly civil, and it
ended up that Alternet wanted a piece of paper from SOMEBODY that
claimed responsibility for our network number. It's a class-B number
and it could hold a lot of people, but it didn't much seem to matter
who -- TIS could sign, I could sign, other Little Garden members could
sign. As long as Alternet has someone to point the finger at about any
problems that arise on our net, they seem to be happy. It ended up
that another member signed the agreement covering the whole network,
and Alternet promptly turned the service back on.
Rick also claimed that Alternet and PSI would probably interconnect
whenever it became convenient, e.g. when they have boxes in the same
room at an NSS, or when the first insistent customer waves a purchase
order in their direction.
This has not resolved any of the longer-term issues of the day, like:
* Is third party traffic allowed? Reasonable?
* Who exactly can we talk to on the NSFnet? (I've got to say
that Stephen Wolff's response to my questions was the limpest
excuse for a non-answer I've seen since I left bureacracy. If
that was a clarification, I'm running the NSFnet. Has Stephen
been taking lessons from George Bush?)
* What's NSF's plan to get us out of the government control mess?
* How do we keep Everybody Connected through and beyond all this?
* Why does nobody want to confront the companies who have been
ignoring the NSF and regional rules for their own benefit?
* Will any of today's network providers survive long enough to
bother?
* Who's scamming who with ANS?
* Why bother with those losing OSI protocols, hey?
But...if you're AUTHORIZED...you can now ping us at 140.174.1.1.
John
