🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <kudzuCpIows.Hr4@netcom.com>, Michael Sierchio writes:

} In article <IS6Mu*gd0@fantasyfarm.com>,
} Bernie Cosell <bernie@fantasyfarm.com> wrote:
} >
} >Feh --- what a load of hogwash.  I think that the *SOONER* they
} >_stop_ having the taxpayers subsidize this grand toy NSF has
} >bestowed upon their chosen few and have folks start to PAY
} >for the bandwidth they so rapaciously chew up, the _better_ the
} >internet will be.
} 
} Much of the Internet is not NSF-funded.  Did you know that?  The MAJORITY.
} And there is, according to Dr. Wolff, reason for continued involvement of
} the government.  Don't forget -- Columbus and Neal Armstrong didn't get
} to their respective destinations as the result of "free enterprise".

Did you READ the post to which you responded to my response.  The 'grand
toy' I was talking about was in the spirit of what the petition was talking
about.  The
'petition' wasn't concerned with NSF:

} ... No, we won't get out altogether, just out of the provision of
} "commodity" networking - i.e., the part that's available on the open market
} from a variety of private suppliers.

But talking about the *WHOLE* bloody network [didn't you see the part
about the advisory committee and including libraries and businesses and
such.  And how about the part where they worry about 'universal access' 
and the impact of NSF's [presumably large] contracts to provide these
services [presumably free at taxpayer expense]?

} ...  We'll always (I hope) be providing
} infrastructure to the bleeding edge (gigabits and beyond...)

Of course.  As has ARPA and DCA and other agencies.  We've built any
number [I forget how many] properly proposalated, funded, and deployed
research vehicles for one part of the gov't or another.  I have
no problem with this.

But again: Reread my post and its predecessor.  It was talking
about *universal access*... that's not infrastructure for advanced
research, but rather buying more T3 lines so the chosen few can
play-without-paying.  And I, too, was talking about getting NSF out
of the *market*.  To stop competing with the "commodity networking"
that has arisen.  To my view that means *STOPPING* providing the
free network services to every little backwater college [and a good
thing too].  Let schools budget for the network resources they wish
to gobble up [and pay for it how they please: if they wish to get a
grant from NSF, let them apply and compete with the actual
REASEARCH projects that, once upon a time, used to be NSF's
business; they can pay for it from their endowment; they can pay
for it from tuition... I don't care.  Just leave the taxpayers out
of the loop.

} ... and to the
} trailing edge (cf. rural electrification), proper functions of government,
} it seems to me.  -s

There are two parts here: first we can debate his 'proper functions of
government'.  I think he's wrong: a 14.4 modem and a $500 IBM PC and
you have the world.  No need for good old Uncle Sam to pump taxpayer
dollars into the system [and note well: *I* would be a beneficiary.
Go find "Pearisburg, VA" [pop 1200] on a map!].  There are already
a dozen alternatives for us rural folk, from 800-dial-in service
providers, to fairly-dirt-cheap LD rates to satellite data feeds.
When 28.8 becomes common, the cost, even for rural folk, simply to
dial-where-they-please and do their networking will be quite
reasonable.  Certainly a LOT cheaper than if the gov't [spending
*MY* @#$%@#$% money] comes in and "helps".

But beyond that debate, even if we *agree* that it is a reasonable
function of government, I think Steve is *WRONG*: it is _not_
within the proper purview of NSF to take on "rural
electrification".  I think they should go back to funding science
research, and leave national social policies alone.  Regardless of
whether any such initiative ought to be happening, NSF ought not
be involved, any more that ARPA or DCA or any of the other funding
agencies that came before NSF in the development of the network.
The network has grown *beyond* NSF and __way__ beyond their proper
function, and so they should just let go and go back to doing what
they are supposed to.  We can debate the social policy of "rural
computerification" in some other forum, funded [as appropriate] by
some more reasonable channel than siphoning off funds supposedly
targeted for scientific research projects.

  /Bernie\
-- 
Bernie Cosell                               bernie@fantasyfarm.com
Fantasy Farm Fibers, Pearisburg, VA         (703) 921-2358