NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY Date : December 6, 1993 compiler : Sam Sternberg samsam@vm1.yorku.ca The first report of this weekly survey will be longer than most future issues. Contact information for most of the material or sites for archival review are attached at the end. Coverage includes: LEGISLATION FUNDING DISCUSSIONS NEW SERVICES TRENDS LEGISLATION A flurry of legislative activity is under way In the U.S. which will effect the public's electronic access to government information. Copyright Law has already been impacted. Many pieces of proposed legislation require implementation of these new access tools and procedures by year end. The Canadian government still has it head in the sand on these issues. The trends are toward unrestricted electronic access to all federal documents. Included are efforts to require major improvement in the document location process. One unfortunate part of this trend is that the major distributors of information, like the National Technical Information Service, which were mandated to charge for their services in the era of expensive paper document delivery; are still subject to those requirements for electronic documents. While all Federal materials may be accessible, substantial portions may end up costing money to acquire. Especially if they are not covered by the Depository library act or if potential users go directly to the Federal Government instead of to a depository institution for copies. Special initiatives covering the process of doing business with the Federal Government already include calls for guarantees of access by small business and minority owned firms. Proposed legislation should help libraries control costs by allowing them to use electronic forms of documents. A Federal initiative to tie together all state Health Departments Nationwide has been announced by the Center for Disease Control. FUNDING The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is seeking proposal from community groups who affiliate with local public broadcasters to offer new network based education services. Substantial funding -[in the context of the very limited amounts often available for network projects] is being offered. For further information, contact Michael J. Strait (202-879-9649) or Kim Smith (202-879-9657). Fax: 202-783-1036 Electronic mail: cweis@cap.gwu.edu Please address written correspondence to: CWEIS Initiative, c/o Michael J. Strait, The Annenberg/CPB Projects Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 901 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004-2037 This effort is part of a growing trend by institutions to stake out "ownership" of a segment of net based activities. "Ownership" will hopefully result in future government funding. CPB assumes that the future of the net includes DELIVERY of video etc. and it needs to get its foot in the door early. At a recent Public Broadcasting Service-sponsored telecommunications conference reps repeated oft heard complaints about lack of access for rural and minority groups and then got to the crux of the matter - The lack of federal government action to establish educational 'set asides.' DISCUSSIONS Two major new discussions of public access and networking issues heated up this week. FIRST - COMMERCIAL USE OF FREE SYSTEMS Free-Net administrators began an intense and interesting discussion on the relations between their sites and those of commercial providers. These discussions focused on the classical "free rider" problem. Should free internet sites be accessed directly from the menus of "pay per use" systems like Delphi. Free-nets are being squeezed by the rising cost of serving incoming traffic from the nets and their own lack of success in fundraising to support expanded services. The demand for freenet services is exploding. Among the consequences are the recent decision by Youngstown Free-Net to terminate new accounts on their system. This makes them " the first Free-Net to consider shutting down due to success. " Their problem? " Without another machine, we can no longer provide "free" services." They are attempting a gopher version of the system so that unregistered users can see most of it the lower resource impacting gopher process, but they don't expect that will solve the problem. Money clearly is needed. On the other hand the success of the Ottawa system in building user traffic - 11,000 new users in 11 months! - has lead two new commercial providers to set up in Ottawa. There strategy is parasitic on the Ottawa success. They plan to use the demand generated by the free-net to offer better internet access to those willing to pay. At the same the free-net itself is having little success raising funds and it too may be driven to cutting off its own growth. SECOND - ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY A new list with the unappealing name of CYPHERWONKS, has been home to an excellent discussion of both philosophical and technical issues that will affect future efforts at broadening democratic institutions through the use of public networks. The new listserv has also inadvertently demonstrated a major weakness of current system as carriers of democratic dialogue. A vicious flame war against on of the discussants has been transferred to this list from it prior locals on several other lists. NEW SERVICES Peter Scot OF HYTELNET reports the new Assistive Technology Database - TELNET BONGO.CC.UTEXAS.EDU or 128.83.186.13 login: tatp ATP maintains ATDI as a public database which aids consumers in locating disability assistive equipment and services. ATDI is meant to help create a list of vendors in a certain region who provide certain services. ----------------------------- The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) released the report, "Making Government Work: Electronic Delivery of Federal Services" [OTA-TCT-578, Sept. 1993]. It urged the Clinton Administration to adopt an overall strategy or vision for the electronic delivery of government services. The report is available in its entirety from the gopher site at CYPHER.ESUSDA.GOV -> Americans Communicating Electronicly ->OTA The first chapter is excellent as a summary and a guide to prior publications in the area of electronic government. This is well worth getting. TRENDS In Canada, Stentor - the alliance of old line phone companies - released a "vision" document saying almost all the right things; but it pointed neglected any mention of public access systems. Their only indirect reference was a request that there be no subsidizing of networks. The lack of phone company enthusiasm for competition from real public access systems is palpable. They are hoping to be permitted to enter the service business and they don't want anyone giving away bandwidth to potential customers. ------------------------------------------------------------ In the U.S., a group in New York is trying to encourage non profit organizations to sponsor a "pay per use" service to provide them with access to State of New York information. At a proposed price of $27.00 per hour of access time, I suspect that this effort to commercialize access to publicly funded public information will die a quick death at the hands of its own greed. ----------------------------------------------------------- "Internet in a Box," software and telephone carrier service has been announced. It will come from a small company cooperating with Sprint. It promises to let users connect directly to the Internet, and it should have a major impact on Internet access and traffic across north america. Sprint has already committed to providing high speed internet service to all comers starting in March. The new connects are direct. You don't need an "access provider." The impact of this on the network's free services are worrisome according to some commentators. One person suggested that the result would be overburdening free services and a consequent demise of those services- see above about the freenet which is dying from its own success . Without better funding for public access systems, that just might be the case. --------------------------------------------------------- An " Electronic Bill of Rights" called the Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for Electronic Learners, an initiative of the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) has been proposed. This rehash of the american founding document would be of little interest if it wasn't yet another example of folks try to own the network and simultaneously guarantee themselves a piece of all future funding. After a brief delineation of the rights of you and I, it quickly proceeds to try and establish similar rights for our benefactors in the educational institutions. It virtually mandates that their right to network access be funded too! Everyone needs funding to create their vision of the future net but this really needs to be dealt with in less self interested ways. A great deal of additional legislative attention has to be given to these issues. .