[10542] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Debating the NII "Truisms"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dick St.Peters)
Sat Feb 26 19:48:53 1994
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 94 17:38:46 EST
From: stpeters@spare-parts.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
To: tenney@netcom.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Reply-To: <stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com>
tenney@netcom.com (Glenn S. Tenney):
> At 7:39 PM 2/12/94 -0500, Dick St.Peters wrote:
> >I think we're close to agreement in principle. The government should
> >not go into taxpayer-funded competition with existing businesses,
> >with certain exceptions I'm too tired and hungry to think about now.
>
> I trust that you're not too tired to consider competition such as the SEC
> Edgar data, the Congressional Record, the Federal Register, etc. If the
> government gives these govt docs away for free, then by definition the
> government would be in competition with existing business. I for one think
> that in such cases, the government has the obligation to "compete" with
> such businesses.
Those are what I was too tired to consider ... meaning I didn't feel up
to trying to come up with a definition that I would have to defend. I
had in mind something like cases where the data was stuff that the govt
collected, originated, paid for, etc. Listing examples doesn't put bounds
on the concept, but examples can be useful in probing where the bounds are.
Suppose I come up with an indexing scheme that increases the usefulness
of the Federal Register enough so that people are willing to pay me for
my indexed version of it. Should the govt start producing a version
indexed the same way? I think not, as a baseline answer.
But what if my indexing is just an application of an indexing scheme
that was developed with federal funding? What if I did that contract
development on a contract that required 25% matching funds? 50%? 75%?
What if I manage to lobby some agency into requiring my indexing by used
for references in proposals?
What if I'm a foreign business? Or a partly-foreign business?
You know, I'm still too tired to think about all these. Let's just say
that I want govt info freely available from the govt, and I don't want
the govt intruding on going businesses, and I'll think about each case
where these clash that comes up when it comes up ... or somebody give
me money to think about them in advance.
--
Dick St.Peters, Gatekeeper
The Pearly Gateway; currently at:
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
