[9614] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: New NSF Agreement - Who will decide ?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Wolff)
Fri Jan 14 08:33:08 1994
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 08:08:57 -0600 (EST)
From: Stephen Wolff <steve@nsf.gov>
To: Joseph Stroup <joseph@path.net>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9401132203.aa13635@pandora.sf.ca.us>
We (my office at NSF) selected reviewers broadly representative of the
several communities affected by the results of the solicitation, each
being expert in some way relevant to the goals of the NSFNET program.
Since they were going to give advice to the government, they were
chartered under the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
Individually and collectively they reviewed the proposals using the
criteria listed in the solicitation - and only those criteria. Then they
made recommendations to us. We discussed the recommendations within the
office and, in the end, I made and am responsible for the decisions.
I have successfully defended my decisions to my management, but before
making any awards I must next month convince the National Science Board -
which, in my fairly extensive but of course possibly not representative
experience and contrary to some published accounts, are about as easy a
pushover as the Washington Monument.
-s
