[380] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: a strategic plan for farnet (and you)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (BRIAN KAHIN)
Thu Mar 14 18:34:41 1991
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1991 18:13 EST
From: BRIAN KAHIN <KAHIN@HULAW1.HARVARD.EDU>
To: emv@ox.com
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com, farber@central.cis.upenn.edu
X-Vms-To: MAILER%"emv@ox.com"
Ed, I think what most concerned me about your posting was that
you characterized the very simplified models which the
consultants had developed for an exercise as FARNET's views:
>In all this (and in a general sense from reading the document) I
>get an uneasy sense that these are not the kinds of networks that I
>want to see. Each of the views has quite a monolithic approach to
>how things will be; there's no visible signs of competition, marketplace,
>or healthy disagreement on how things will be done. Success is dependent
>solely on the ability to win government grants; small enterpreneruial
>efforts are written off as "heroic efforts of a few individuals".
>Organizations which are flourishing today (regional nets, Alternet,
>PSI) just disappear somehow.
And took righteous offense:
>Particularly galling is the Capitalized Treatment of Special Interest
>Groups, as if these were new things which would pop up if FARNET tossed
>a few coins their way. (OK, I'm exaggerating.) No clue in any of this
>about the thousands of user communities already exchanging information
>and doing their thing on the internet right today.
And came to this derogatory conclusion:
>Who is FARNET, and what have they ever done? What's their list of
>projects, accomplishments, papers, software, etc ? My personal
>favorite approach is their #5 future, "FARNET is Caput [sic]":
Your message conveyed glee that you had discovered an arrogant
and mindless document put forth by an unaccomplished bunch of
regional networks. I believe that if you had read it carefully
(which you might not have done in the middle of the night), you
would have seen the "views" for what they were and thereby
recognized that the plan in large part documented an internal
planning process -- i.e., not the sort of thing that
organizations publish to the world. Instead, you urged everybody
to go grab it and baited them with misattributed sound bites.
Let me say that I may have assumed, unfairly, that Dave Farber
had read between your lines. Unfortunately, the air was filled
with the smell of scandal, and he was the first to announce his
interest.
I guess now everybody can judge the document for themselves.
Needless to say, I feel much less charitable toward Goodfellow's
decision to publish after it had been identified as a private
document -- and to claim the mantle of Daniel Ellsberg in the
process.
I do not agree that posting a document for anonymous ftp means
that it is licensed for public distribution, especially beyond
the initial retrieval, but I concede that the fact that it was
posted at a NISC suggests that it is fair game -- until there is
information to the contrary.
-- Brian
