[214] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Implicit Assumptions Crystalizing for the NREN
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jqj@duff.uoregon.edu)
Wed Feb 27 14:27:40 1991
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 27 Feb 91 12:54:52 EST."
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 91 11:12:28 PST
From: jqj@duff.uoregon.edu
I have to agree that organizations like Educom aren't very representative
of academics (as opposed to academic computing centers). Presumably,
traditional supercomputing users are well represented in networking
circles, but what about other academics? In general, there are NOT very
many good institutional ways for "average" academics to provide input on
their needs for national networking, since there are not very many
institutions that cut a broad swathe across academia.
Steve Wolff notes his success in signing up undergraduate institutions; I
applaud that initiative, but am not convinced that it reflects much input
from or support by a broad base of faculty (rather than computing centers)
at those institutions.
One relatively untapped resource is the professional societies. ACM
members are fairly visible in national networking, but one doesn't see
much visibility from professional societies in many other network-literate
disciplines. I would think that encouraging a networking focus at
Neuroscience conventions or Psychonomics might yield major rewards. Some
of these organizations may turn out to have networking agendas that are
NOT well served by present national directions (e.g. I've heard from
neuroscientist friends that their professional society is considering a
timesharing dialin email/conferencing system. Why not use NSFnet?
Apparently because there is concern with security and keeping a low
profile due to animal rights activism. Or e.g. the physicists who
avoid SMTP-based mail since fax is so much more convenient a way to send
pictures.)
So, I share some of Marty's concern that we haven't done as good a job as
we might at developing a broad base of input for the E part of NREN. I
don't think he's right that it's best characterized as support for big
science; that was much more true in the Jennings era when national
networking was defined as access to NSF supercomputer centers than it is
today.
JQ Johnson
Director of Network Services Internet: jqj@oregon.uoregon.edu
University of Oregon voice: (503) 346-4394
250E Computing Center BITNET: jqj@oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1212 fax: (503) 346-4397
