[2522] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Books and journals on-line from publishers and vendors
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Manavendra K. Thakur)
Fri Mar 13 12:32:41 1992
To: Stephen Wolff <steve@cise.cise.nsf.gov>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 13 Mar 92 09:20:09 -0500.
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 92 12:31:20 EST
From: "Manavendra K. Thakur" <thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu>
>>>>> On Fri, 13 Mar 92 09:20:09 EST, Stephen Wolff <steve@cise.cise.nsf.gov> said:
> At the House hearings yesterday, Rep. Boucher questioned the basis
> for the NSFNET BB AUP. We're siccing our crack legal staff on the
> issue, but should the AUP prove to be baseless and be subsequently
> withdrawn (or be annulled by legislation), life could get even more
> interesting hereabouts...
Excuse me?
Are you suggesting that NSF instituted its AUP *without* going through
a thorough and careful analysis of whether an AUP was required? I
can't believe that, but that's the way your comments seem to read.
Presumably, NSF did go through such a thorough review of the
applicable statues/executive orders/regulations back in 1988. Why,
then, were you not able to hand Rep. Boucher a sheet of paper
summarizing the legalese that, in the NSF's opinion, demanded an AUP?
An executive summary of the original legal opinion would have
certainly sufficed.
The only reasonable interpretation of your comment I can think of is
that you meant to say that the legalese changed somehow between 1988
and 1992, and that perhaps an AUP is *no longer* mandated. And that
your "crack legal staff" is investigating whether this is the case.
Could you clarify your comments please?
Thanks very much.
Manavendra K. Thakur Internet: thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu
Systems Programmer, High Energy Division BITNET: thakur@cfa.BITNET
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for DECNET: CFA::thakur
Astrophysics UUCP: ...!uunet!mit-eddie!thakur
