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Cyhist Sep 17 1997 C
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========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 10:57:03 -0400
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Charles Brownstein <cbrownst@CNRI.RESTON.VA.US>
Subject: Re: CYHIST Digest - 29 Aug 1997 to 16 Sep 1997
In-Reply-To: <199709170440.AAA11726@cnri.reston.va.us> Mime-Version: 1.0
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______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
Please don't confuse the NSF Inspector General's opinion with NSF policy. She produces lots of reports and recommendations that are not made part of NSF policy. You need to understand that her job is not to make policy but to investigate possible departures from proceedure and law and advise the Director.
>From the begining, NSF allowed use of its community of networks by
commercial firms (e.g., computer and communications companies) so long as they did so for for R&D purposes as part of its broad mission to facilitiate progress in science and technology.
The problem of fairness arose when some of the academic pioneers started commercial ISPs (eg UUNET and PSI) and were faced with competing with the federally funded regionals, and were passing packets over the federally funded backbone).
Since it was NSF's stated policy from the earliest days of NSFnet to transfer the technology to commercial application (and drive the price of IP transport down to market growing levels), NSF came up with its acceptable use policy as a way to attempt to hold off really grevious unfairness till the industry could get established (recall that was before the telcos got it.)
Whenever the opportunity arose to achieve its policy goals NSF did so. Thus for example it approved the linkage of MCI and internet mail (A nice touch for historians is Cerf coded it at Kahn's CNRI!). Those were the days! Sigh...
Charles N. Brownstein
Executive Director
Cross-Industry Working Team (XIWT)
Corporation for National Research Initiatives 1895 Preston White Drive
Suite 100
Reston, VA 22191-5434
Internet mail: cbrownst@cnri.reston.va.us Web: <http://www.xiwt.org>
Tel: (703) 620-8990
Fax: (703) 620-0913
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Charles Brownstein <cbrownst@CNRI.RESTON.VA.US>
Subject: Re: CYHIST Digest - 29 Aug 1997 to 16 Sep 1997
In-Reply-To: <199709170440.AAA11726@cnri.reston.va.us> Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
Please don't confuse the NSF Inspector General's opinion with NSF policy. She produces lots of reports and recommendations that are not made part of NSF policy. You need to understand that her job is not to make policy but to investigate possible departures from proceedure and law and advise the Director.
>From the begining, NSF allowed use of its community of networks by
commercial firms (e.g., computer and communications companies) so long as they did so for for R&D purposes as part of its broad mission to facilitiate progress in science and technology.
The problem of fairness arose when some of the academic pioneers started commercial ISPs (eg UUNET and PSI) and were faced with competing with the federally funded regionals, and were passing packets over the federally funded backbone).
Since it was NSF's stated policy from the earliest days of NSFnet to transfer the technology to commercial application (and drive the price of IP transport down to market growing levels), NSF came up with its acceptable use policy as a way to attempt to hold off really grevious unfairness till the industry could get established (recall that was before the telcos got it.)
Whenever the opportunity arose to achieve its policy goals NSF did so. Thus for example it approved the linkage of MCI and internet mail (A nice touch for historians is Cerf coded it at Kahn's CNRI!). Those were the days! Sigh...
Charles N. Brownstein
Executive Director
Cross-Industry Working Team (XIWT)
Corporation for National Research Initiatives 1895 Preston White Drive
Suite 100
Reston, VA 22191-5434
Internet mail: cbrownst@cnri.reston.va.us Web: <http://www.xiwt.org>
Tel: (703) 620-8990
Fax: (703) 620-0913
______________________________________________________________________
