response 1 of 63:

Dec 4 17:07 UTC 1994

Thanks immensely for entering this, Valerie. 

From what I heard at the first meeting they seem to be in the early stages of 
organizing. I noticed that what Grex can offer seems to complement well with 
what HVCN can offer.  Naturally, I am very interested in seeing us discuss 
further possibilities.

HVCN has a commitment from Merit for a high-speed internet connection.
As Valerie said, they are going to be able to provide a much larger pool
of modems for local access than Grex could ever manage. HVCN currently
has no computer, and I don't think they really know what they want to
have. They claimed that they saw themselves as a way to connect together
many electronic resources in the community. At the current time, they bemoaned
that they didn't even have a way to allow HVCN members to send email to each
other.

Grex, with its infrastructure in place, can fill that role for them.
We can go farther, by providing a public conference for HVCN members and other
interested people to discuss HVCN matters. If HVCN is going to be more
like a network than a computer, then it is not a stretch to see Grex
as a host on such a network of community-oriented resources.

The idea here is that Grex would provide email and conferencing support to
this community and they would provide us with access, both locally and via the 
internet.  This is an idea which has not been bought into by either Grex or 
HVCN.  In fact it was only hinted at, and not discussed outright. It has the
potential of having a huge affect on both Grex and HVCN.

It has been running around in my head for a while now, and I wanted to
put it down where others could see it, and offer comments.
I want to be very sure this is going to be good for Grex before I decide
that I am in favor of it. At this point, I have no clue.

Another unknown is how uncomfortable the HVCN organization will be with
Grex's culture of favoring free access, anonymity, etc.  I am certain
that Grex will not want to give up any ground in these areas, nor should it.
These are just among the many issues yet to come out.

response 3 of 63:

Dec 4 17:38 UTC 1994

Very interesting.  This sounds like a way for Grex to help the community,
albeit indirectly at first, yet do so using current capabilities and
resources (i.e., not requiring major planning and thought processes that
seem to scare people off).  I'd like to see more local connections to
Grex, and this is one way to further that goal, too.  
  Grexers can, I think, share a lot of "start up" stories, and "if we
had to do it again" type of experiences that HVCN might find helpful to
their planning.

response 5 of 63:

Dec 7 01:23 UTC 1994

   Methinks the pie is so big that 1000 Grex's couldn't handle it all...

response 7 of 63:

Dec 10 01:02 UTC 1994

I was unable to attend, but I hope that the meeting was fruitful,
and I especially hope that you were able to accomplish what you proposed
in number 6, John.

Please let us know what happened at the meeting.
(Request directed at anyone who attended the meeting.)

response 9 of 63:

Dec 11 07:14 UTC 1994

At a Respond or pass? prompt in this item, enter a   0     (i.e., zero).
That will take you to the Item description where HVCN is defined as

response 11 of 63:

Dec 11 17:26 UTC 1994

Carl, remmers, scg, STeve and I attended (part or all of) the HVCN meeting
on Friday.  Arnold Barr talked about where the HVCN is now, and what needs
to be done.  John, did, indeed, say what he said he would in #6.  The HVCN
is going to meet again on January 20, 1995, to figure out what tasks need
to be done and who is going to do them.  They seem to still need people to
volunteer for lots of things -- if you can help, please go to the January
meeting.

Jeff Ogden from Merit was there.  He mentioned that it costs $1000 a year
for community groups to be reachable from the "Which Host?" prompt.  Grex
seems to meet their definition of a community group.  I'll be entering an
item in the coop conference to talk about this.

response 13 of 63:

Dec 16 16:14 UTC 1994

What exactly is this "gateway" to GREX mentioned in #0?  How does it work?
And what exactly would it do?

response 15 of 63:

Dec 17 02:56 UTC 1994

Especially if HVCN is willing to provide free anonymous public dial-ins,
then I think it would make a *lot* of sense for grex to look into
whatver form of high speed network interconnect is possible.  On the
other hand, if they're for-pay then, in a sense, they're just another
commercial internet provider; it *might* still make sense, but we might
want to consider all the pros & cons more carefully.

One of the alternatives we might want to consider, is setting up our own
public dial-in network.  Historically, that's never made sense.  But if
merit goes "for-pay" and HVCN goes "for-pay", and if we care about free
public access, this may be the only option.  And, in a sense, things are
getting more favourable - networking options are certainly improving, &
hardware prices are falling quickly.

response 17 of 63:

Dec 17 03:22 UTC 1994

Nor to me either. It sounded like they were interested in providing
access via what would turn out to be a large modem pool of theirs to
a number of community services (one of which *could* be Grex), perhaps
in return for expertise or services from our system.
No one actually proposed this, however.

response 19 of 63:

Dec 17 14:36 UTC 1994

HCVN has applied for 501(c)3 status and intends to provide public access
at no charge.

response 21 of 63:

Dec 21 12:35 UTC 1994

If we intend to apply for 501(c)3, yes, it might be helpful to review
someone's completed application if they're willing to share it.

response 23 of 63:

Feb 14 18:22 UTC 1995

ajax, scg, robh, popcorn, remmers, srw ??  Anybody?  Any news?