🚀 go-pugleaf

In news.admin.misc, B Martin <bmartin@utmem1.utmem.edu> writes:
> Russ Allbery <rra@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:

>> It's this "I'm a taxpayer, so I *OWN* EVERYTHING you've EVER TOUCHED!"
>> crusade that gets on my nerves.

> Do you realize that most state univeristy systems are subject to that
> state's open meetings laws?  In the states I am familiar with, the average
> taxpayer can attend any lecture s/he chose on a random basis.  Most just
> do not choose to use this right (and it is a right under most open meeting
> laws).  Multiple attendance is regulated because of the question of
> tuition.

At every university that I have ever attended, anyone would be able to
attend a lecture with little difficulty -- the only exception being courses
that are overcrowded and have no room for another person.  I wasn't aware of
a particular law regulating that, but it really doesn't matter.  What
tuition buys is written acknowledgement that you have taken the class for
credit, usually in the form of transcripts or degrees.  If someone wanted to
attend random classes, I don't know of any instructor who would object.

> Likewise, most technical equipment on the campuses of state universities
> is likely required to be accessible to qualified users by similar
> legislation and with appropriate arrangements to prevent chaos.

Since this requirement would mean that any state citizen has the right to
get an account on any university computer system, and since that obviously
is not the case, I must conclude that you do not know what you're talking
about.  Feel free to provide actual statutes and case law to prove me wrong.

> The actions of the administrator is more analogous to denying campus to
> citizens of city 1 because of other citizens of city 1 were unruly.  It
> simply can't be done this way at a state university.

However, it is done that way on Usenet and will continue to be done that way
on Usenet whether you like it or not.  On this matter, what Fletcher did was
right, and if the law says he shouldn't have done it, then the law is
wrong.  Full stop.

> Denying access to a specific user based on previous acts by other people
> is essentially prior restraint and out of place for a government
> representative.

The administrator of a computer system for the computer science department
of the University of Texas is not a government representative.

I quite frankly find this attitude appalling.  The computer systems at a
university are there for the use of the students and staff.  The amount of
tax money you pay that actually goes to the computer system is infintessimal
to the point of nonexistance.  And the amount of processing time that
computer used to run the gateway was certainly not the entirety of the
capabilities of the machine.  I certainly agree that the purpose of a
government is to serve its people, and that government must be watched
closely since it attracks unscrupulous people, but that is not what was
happening here.

Here is an example of a volunteer service run by someone in their free time
because it was a good idea and someone found it helpful.  That act was in
the grand tradition of the Internet, and echoes thousands of other acts by
thousands of other people, who together are responsible for the
communications medium that we use today.  Those acts are not your "right,"
nor is the use of them something that you "deserve."  They are gifts, given
freely and with good will, with the assumption that they will be returned in
kind by the rest of the community.

Into that environment, you would bring laws and rights, and claim that you
have a right to another person's free time.  To me, this is like the
Englishman landing on the shore of New England and proclaiming that he now
owns North America.  Well, sir, there are people who live here, who work
here, and whose labor has made this land what it is today, and you have no
claim to that.  We welcome all comers, and anyone who is willing to join the
community and provide something useful, to add to it for the benefit of
everyone, can easily join and enjoy all of the conveniences that those
before them have built.  But demand it all as your right, as something that
we are *obligated* to provide, and it will all slip through your hands like
water.

Perhaps you are one who has already provided something useful to the
community, and who is well aware of how the Internet is structured.  If so,
I presume you understand what I'm talking about, and you can take this post
as directed towards those like Cat Yronwode who obviously don't.  But it
didn't sound that way to me.

As people come on the Internet saying that they *deserve* these services,
that they are their *right*, you will see more of what just happened.  The
gateways will close because they are no longer worth the bother of
maintaining.  Those of us who maintain archives and ftp sites, mailing lists
and FAQs will decide we have better things to do with our lives than deal
with endless complaints, and will close up shop.  What will be left will be
a sterile world of laws and regulations, where everyone is equal in poverty
and all real discussion, all real sharing and growth and expansion of
communication takes place in secret and underground so as to avoid the
oppressive bureaucracy.

In that day, I will take great pleasure in going to those people like Cat
Yronwode and telling them that, in the end, they got *precisely* what they
deserved.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu)     http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rra/