[403] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
"Internet Accessible Dialouts"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marty Schoffstall)
Thu Mar 21 22:23:00 1991
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 21:59:22 -0500
From: schoff@psi.com (Marty Schoffstall)
To: com-priv@uu.psi.com
In USENET about one posting a day requests the above, sometimes the
request details that it is to get to some commercial service cheaply,
most of the time the reason is not given.
All of this is appears BBS centric, the postings are in one of the BBS
groups, talking about BBS's etc.
In the policy area, is this a good thing?
Now step back a moment and think about BBS's.
Clearly they have been around for awhile, and clearly they have
been on the Internet itself for awhile, but is this a good thing?
Specifically are they a good thing when they include just about
everyone in the local region, from K-12 style people to pensioners?
Now one more level.
We have Cleveland FreeNet (I've used it, but I always forget
the name) obviously running on the Internet without a problem
but on the other hand places like "The World" (Sometimes
Barry really reaches!) who are discontinues from the Internet
(but not the Alternet and SURANET who "host them"), because
they are "commercial".
[I personally worry a lot less about
the people that Barry supports than almost all of the
"educational BBS's".]
As I understand "the policy" the commercial BBS's need the individuals
to sign over the nsfnet rules, and then they can permit access.
I tried to "splain" this to someone of late and was dismissed and then
publicly nuked, but that comes with the territory.
steve@nsf.gov are you there? I'd like a BBS centric policy statement
that can be applied equally to all. But of course I expect a debate
on the merits of this.
Marty
PS: apologies to all for over simplifying things, for example
I know "The World" isn't
a BBS, but I needed a handle to discuss a class of things.
