response 50 of 186:

Nov 3 16:20 UTC 1996

"Freenet" is a copyrighted name applied only to members of a private (not
governmental) organization that recently went defunct.  kerouac is right to
say Grex is not formally a freenet.  I'm not sure if anyone is right now,
since the umbrella organization no longer exists.

I have no idea what "freenet" means informally, since no accepted informal
definition of the term exists.  kerouac thinks Grex is informally a free net.
I think that statement (a) has almost no meaning, and (b) is misleading and
confusing.  Grex is in some ways like some freenets, and in some ways
different from other freenets and in many ways unique.  Who cares?  What does
it prove?

response 52 of 186:

Nov 4 09:51 UTC 1996

As originally conceived, free-nets were supposed to seek out primarly
corporate and govermental funding, and thence to provide a limited sort
of "free" internet access - generally, e-mail, gopher, & usenet, to the
public.  There was little expectation that free-nets might develop their
own significant local content, or that they would need any significant
financial support from their users.  Initially, free-nets provided a
fair amount of "anonymous" access.  Later, due to a combination of
vandals, inept operation, too much demand, and underfunding, most have
gone to some form of tiered membership.  The free-nets in michigan are
unusual in that they don't provide much telnet access.  Free-nets in
most places provide that, at least to other free-net sites.  "shell"
access is a rare privilege on most free-nets.  Users on most free-nets
are expected to only use a menu interface.  Initially, that software was
to be bought, on a rather expensive yearly basis, from NPTN.

Free-nets have definitely been evolving in a directory that makes them
look more & more like grex.  However, there are still significant
differences.

response 54 of 186:

Nov 4 16:55 UTC 1996

I will say that the reason I found out about grex was that the Library of
Congress in D.C. keeps its own national listing of what it considers "free
nets" and provides links to them.  Grex is on that list, right on the same
page with theCleeveland freenet and theBuffalo freenet and the Colorado
freenet and many others.  Ihave also seen grexlisted on the freenet
listings of several other places, like Michigan State's gopher, and a
freenet page offered through the University of Virginia.  I know quite a
few people who have endedup on grex because of those links.  They camehere
because grex was listed as a "free net" (not freenet which is copyrighted
but understood to be essentially the samething).

So if the board and members don't wish to be considered a free net then
they should get themselves removed from the links of those pages.  It is
false advertising toclaim tobe something that you are not.  But if you
guys DO want to be based on the freenet concept, keepin mind what you have
to do to remain that way (no tiered memberships, no restrictions that mean
that thebasic product that grex offers isnt open to everyone)  

response 56 of 186:

Nov 4 17:41 UTC 1996

There was a time when NPTN was actively policing the use of the term 
Free-net (their service mark). I don't know if they still are, given 
that they are flat out of money. It is one of their few remaining assets
 that could be sold to pay off creditors. They should.

The L of C should be told that the category is Community Networks, 
because a list of free-nets should be restricted to those who have paid 
for the right (membership in NPTN) to be called one. grex is not going 
to ask to have itself removed from that list, as it is a mislabeled list
 of community networks. Fix the label, Richard -- don't screw up the 
content.

--

Local content has always been at least one of the goals of Free-Nets. 
The Cleveland Free-net and its successor, the Youngstown free-net are 
two early ones that had local content. The software they ran was written
 for  the CFN and called "FreePort". It was a menu system that severely 
restricted ones access to the net. You could only go to places you could
 find by gopher, at least for a long time. It was about the time that 
grex got its net connection and subsequently got itself listed on the 
MSU gopher page.

This page, like the L of C, called the systems that it pointed to 
"Free-nets", even though they were not all affiliated with NPTN. If the 
term "Free-Net" were ever made freely usable, I am sure it would come to
 mean community networks which offer free access, and Grex would 
certainly be one of those.

response 58 of 186:

Nov 4 17:48 UTC 1996

Let's follow the reasoning here:  Kerouac thought Grex was a freenet because
he saw it mentioned with some other freenets.  Kerouac cannot possibly be
wrong about anything, so Grex should admit to being a freenet.  Unfortunately,
if Grex admitted to being a freenet then we would be in violation of the law,
because that name is a trademark or the NPTN and Grex is not a member of that
organization.  Kerouac is grudging willing to concede that Grex might not want
to violate the law just so Kerouac's personal sense of infalliability can be
maintained, but if Grex won't do that, then at least Grex has to accept direct
responsiblity for allowing Kerouac to be wrong about something.  After all, if
Kerouac were by some miracle wrong about something, then it could not possibly
be his fault.  Grex should thus vindicate Kerouac by setting out on a world-
wide campaign to make sure that Grex is plainly marked as "not a free-net" on
every web page that mentions it.  While it's true that spending our time in
such a way would confer no benefits of any kind on Grex or its users and would
fulfill no legal obligation on our part, it would at least assuage Kerouac's
embarassment over being wrong, and is thus a worthy use of our time.

I hereby offer in the name of Grex, CCI, it's members, users, board and staff
our official and formal apologies to Kerouac for allowing a state to exist
in the universe which was the direct cause of his normally flawless
perceptions of reality to be fleetingly disrupted.  We promises we will never
ever do it again.

Can we now get back to talking about something that matters to Grex, like
whether or not multiple votes should be allowed in Grex elections?

response 60 of 186:

Nov 4 18:08 UTC 1996

So what's your point?  How does it relate to the question of whether Grex
should allow members to have multiple votes?  How does it relate to any
specific issues under discussion here?  We know what Grex's purpose is.  We
practically invented the idea, about 14 years ago, long before there were any
"freenets".  Why are you telling us things we know better than anyone on the
planet?

response 62 of 186:

Nov 4 18:25 UTC 1996

14 years ago? I thought grex was five years old.   And it relates to the
questionof whether grex should allow multiple member votes, because that
question is directlyr elated to whether one sees grex as a privateclub or
a type of free net.  If it is, as you agree, a type of free net, itshould
bne doing everythingpossible to be as public a groupe as possible and to
get as many people involved as possible.  So it should want as many people
voting as possible.  It should welcome the opportunity for other people,
whether or not they can contribute moonetarily to get involved.  

One can contribute to PBS under fifteen differentnames if one wants to./
It is the involvement that counts.  So Inot only think that this multiple
voting question is silly, I think that anyone who wants to contribute
wshould be allowed to because this (grex) should be sonsidered "owned by
the public" If there werent all kindds of legal reasons, maybe Cyberspace
Communications Inc. wouldnt even have needed to be formed.  Grex should be
considered owned by its users, any user who wants to participate (even
unverifiedones like Selena).  That is what would/should make it a true
"free net"    Anything else is a bastardizationof the concept.

response 64 of 186:

Nov 4 20:25 UTC 1996

I just entered a kerouac item, item 137, to further discuss this topic.
It includes responses 61 & 63, if people want to reply to either of those.

response 66 of 186:

Nov 4 23:03 UTC 1996

That raises an interesting point.  Does State law require us to only have one
vote per person or not?  It seems to me that if it does, that should end the
discussion right then and there.  However, if it does not, then the question
is still open.  

response 68 of 186:

Nov 5 16:52 UTC 1996

But as I understand it, M-net was started by one person out of his home.  
I dont see how Janc can claim credit for inventing it or even conceiving 
the idea.  Plus which I know of two similar boards that (one of which no 
longer exsists) date back to at least 1981.

response 70 of 186:

Nov 5 18:09 UTC 1996

It's a side issue, but M-Net was started by Mike Myers and Marcus Watts.  I
was involved early as a staff member and a major donor.  Probably my major
contribution to early M-Net was in starting the idea solicitying user donations
to fund faster growth of the system.  Prior to that it was funded out of Mike's
pocket. At some point M-Net split into two systems, and the Grex founders took
some new steps (no private ownership, no tiered access) that were reactions to
what went before.  I consider it a continuous history.   You can consider it
what you like.

response 72 of 186:

Nov 5 19:59 UTC 1996

kerouac in #68:  janc did not say that "he" was responsible for the 
public access aspects of M-net; he said that "we" were.  Most of the 
Grex founders and early active users had been active participants and 
leaders on M-net's social laboratory for years.  And it was the users who 
shaped M-net, not the owners; founder Mike Myers wrote an essay 
at one point which expressed his dissatisfaction at how it had all 
turned out.  So yes, janc and remmers and popcorn and others are 
part of that history and tradition going all the way back to the 
early 1980s.   
 
This might be part of the reason folks get cranky when kerouac 
starts talking about how Grex will fail if... or If we want Grex 
to be a success...   kerouac seems to think that Grex was organized 
last year and that Grex's concepts are new ones; 
while in truth, Grex's roots go back to a very early 
period, almost to the beginning of social computer communications.
In the computer field, anything which has survived for so many 
years is a success already.   :)

response 74 of 186:

Nov 6 08:11 UTC 1996

(Could folks take the "origins of Grex" and Richard's theory that Grex is
dying to some other item?  This is the "members with more than one vote"
item.)

Back when Grex was founded, founders discussed anonymous memberships and the
fact that one person could buy several memberships and vote several times if
anonymous memberships were allowed.  At the time, the concensus was that if
anybody wanted to spend the money to become a member of Grex several times
over, they were welcome to do so.  In the end, Grex would benefit, since it
would receive extra income.

In an early co-op conference I believe I entered an item expressing concern
that someone could buy lots of memberships and theoretically could take over
Grex by buying an election.  People told me that I was being overly concerned
about a non-problem.