[134] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: NSF censoring sites around the Internet
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dan Schlitt)
Mon Nov 12 16:18:33 1990
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 16:03:59 -0500
From: Dan Schlitt <dan@sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
To: gnu@toad.com, lear@turbo.bio.net
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
--------
In response to one of Kent England's earlier messages, many
universities are already in a position to charge their PIs a ``network
access'' charge. That charge should just be figured into the grant.
Rather than presuming that PIs should be expected to know something
about networking, let the individual sites figure a way to divide the
bill among the grants. Otherwise you're doing too much central
planning.
--
Eliot Lear
[lear@turbo.bio.net]
--------
Eliot,
They may be in the position to charge them but it won't work. Unless
things are very different in the future than they have been in the
past this is how it works.
PI includes an item in the budget of the grant proposal for your
networking charge along with all the other items like publications
charges, travel to meetings, etc. Funding agency reviews proposal and
responds that (in the favorable case) we can fund it but only for $$.
Some thing must be cut from the budget. Probably all three of the
above mentioned items will be cut. Will the institution cut the PI
out of network access if that item is cut from the grant. My
observation is that the amount of cuts frequently corresponds quite
closely to the total of the items the funding agency thinks are
unjustified frills -- like networking costs or the cost of computer
time.
You see, the Materials Science Directorate of the funding agency does
not see the funding of computer networks as a part of its mandate.
They will feel that the institution should fund it from some other
source. The one grant associated source is the overhead on the grant.
But there are lots of folk who lust after that pot of money.
And what if the funding agency has an interest in centralized funding
and control of the network infrastructure? That also might influence
the view that Materials Science has of the subject.
/dan
