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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: FW: OIG Investigates the NSF (revised)
On Wed, 5 Feb 1997, Jim Fleming wrote: > 1. More government officials need to become educated about the > technology, the costs, the potential, and the need to fund > a broad cross-section of their constituencies as opposed > to the same old circle of friends that live off the NSF. They > are not going to get this education from the Internet Politicians > and therefore companies and indpendent people will have > to help. Education costs money and time. And time is money so the first problem is that education will cost a lot. In addition, the people who have an aptitude for management often do not have an aptitude for technology. Do you want governments to spend more of limited taxpayer dollars on educating themselves? Do you want government to become the exclusive preserve of technocrats? I think not. > 2. Companies need to provide a stronger presence in the R&D > community and the Internet Infrastructure arena via the > dedication of people, servers, routers and networks > to help support the transition of the Internet FROM the > small group of Internet Politicians TO the real politicians > of the world and the real governments. Are you suggesting that corporations should take on a larger tax burden? No matter how you phrase it, using corporate resources to support government programs is a form of taxation. And increasing the jobs that governments do means increasing taxes. This sort of socialist agenda has pretty much been discredited in most of the world. > 3. Taxpayers need to become better educated that the continued > funding of Internet Politicians is not in the best interest > of the taxpayers, because the Internet Politicians are > attempting to use that money to duplicate many of the > same government structures that already exist and the > taxpayers are going to end up paying twice for the same > functions. If you think that government bureaucrats are spending half their time doing nothing and therefore could be better occupied taking on new tasks then why shouldn't government simply lay off half the bureaucrats and cut costs while leaving the Internet to its own devices? In addition, you are incorrect when you say that taxpayers are paying twice because taxpayers do not pay for the Internet any more now that NSF has dismantled the NSFnet and removed funding for Internet infrastructure. > In my opinion, the U.S. now has the advantage of "going it alone". > A close cooperation of the government, corporations, and taxpayers > is all that is now required to really accelerate progress in the U.S. > In essence, the IPv4 "experimental" Internet can be viewed as an > academic prototype and now the serious money will step into the > picture to move the playing field to a different level. Are you seriously suggesting that the USA should disconnect itself from the global Internet?! Somehow I can't see this idea receiving any corporate support whatsoever given that even small US corporations are able to support export activities using the Internet. It would certainly be a marvelous windfal for the rest of the world but I doubt that the US taxpayers would appreciate having their money used this way. > @ and losers. Lets get NSI's monopoly removed gracefully, thank the NSF for > @ their "assistance" over the years, and let industry take the lead. > @ > @ Bill Schrader > @ Chairman, President, CEO and Founder > @ PSINet Inc. Upon reading this little segment I realize that Bill's earlier comments probably did not have the spin which you put on them in this reply. > Yes, industry needs to take the lead. In my opnion, industry > needs to lead government. U.S. companies need to get together > to make specific proposals to the U.S. government to "assist" > the NSF out of the picture and as a replacement better more > reliable systems and services need to fill the void. Quite frankly, the NSF already is out of the picture. The one remaining thread is that they have a contract with NSI which does not expire until around April of 1998. Other than that, their Internet activities appear to be wholly in support of the research and education community which is quite appropriate. > The ball is clearly in the NSF's court. The current investigation > of the NSF by the Office of the Inspector General will hopefully Sounds like you are continuing to harass anyone you can find to help you tilting against the windmills. Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-250-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: [email protected] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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