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Net Pioneers Say Open Internet Should Be Separate
angry tapir writes "The US Federal Communications Commission should allow for an open Internet separate from specialized services that may prioritize IP traffic, a group of Internet and technology pioneers has recommended. The document, filed in response to an FCC request for public comments on proposed network neutrality rules, steers clear of recommending what rules should apply to the open Internet. Among the tech experts signing the document are Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Bruce Perens, founder of the open-source software movement; Clay Shirky, an author and lecturer at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program; and David Reed, a contributor to the development of TCP/IP and an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab."
I can honestly say I don't understand it. But it does sound like something that I end up paying for. Santax is Dutch and hates paying.
I propose we make a new internet, except with blackjack and hookers! Oh...
crazy dynamite monkey
And exactly how are people on these "prioritized" networks supposed to reach the "open" Internet?
Oh yeah. Through their prioritized network's traffic-prioritized peering point.
I summon Picard. Patron Saint of the Facepalm.
The answer to not liking those who apply such a technical response to a financial situation is NOT always "make another one that's separate and free". Sometimes it is "remove the financial incentive" for those that do.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I bet your ISP would LOVE to sell you 2 internet connections, they might even let you 'bundle' them together... Of course, the open one would probably cost more.
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These guys are all smart and should have known better than to hedge to this degree. They have written a lot but not provided any value with their enormous brainpower.
Besides, if you split the internet into two pipes, one neutral and one non-neutral, you kill net neutrality because you can prioritize the non-neutral bit over the neutral bit. In other words, you can't be a little bit pregnant.
Who pays for a separate "open" Internet?
Idealism is great until you realize that someone has to pay for it, and that someone is always, without exception, YOU. And there's that annoying Fourth Amendment, and case law that would get in the way. Remember, if the government can muster the power to seize a major industry over ideological reasons, what defense would smaller companies (including yours, for all values of "you") have with the takeover of the commercial Internet as precedent? Ideologies come and go, but powers of regulation and seizure only linger and grow.
Don't feed the regulation-monster. Don't feed the confiscation-monster. It only makes them stronger.
There are problems that have to be solved, but there are no functional answers which don't involve imposing expenses on other people or allowing the government far, far more powers over Internet content and monitoring than it already has. It's quite possible that, warts and problems and all, what we have right now may be the least of evils. Please keep an open mind to that possibility.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
No, I propose that the electric company upgrade their infrastructure to handle the capacity.
Of course, this creates problems. What if one guy is running an MRI machine or something that sucks up insane amounts of juice? Obviously the electric company shouldn't be required to upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate that load. So where do we draw the line?
The issue is that we're not talking about one guy on the block "using up all the internet". It's the fact that bandwidth usage is increasing for EVERYONE. Games are distributed electronically, movies are streamed, music is streamed, web pages have more and more content that you can download, etc. This isn't one guy with grow lamps causing a brownout. It's everyone on the block that wants to turn on their lights at reasonable times that's causing the problem. This more closely models internet usage.
Also, there's no talk here of guaranteed electricity or bandwidth. ISPs promise "up to" such and such a limit. This means that they can give you absolutely no service because 0kb/s is still "up to" 30MB/s (or whatever the fuck they advertise). This would be like the electric company promising you "up to" some power and then not giving you enough to even run your lights. If the electric company did this, people would be rioting until it was fixed. (It's happened before)
In either case, the solution is not to implement throttling.
We can debate all day about whether or not the government should regulate the internet, but I think we can all agree that competition would result in better service for everyone. Once some company actually makes good on a plan that contains a real SLA (including minimum speeds and uptime) they'll start raking in money like none other. The problem is that there is no competition. The barrier to entry is huge, and you have large companies like comcast that have monopolies in large areas of the US and lawyers to make sure it stays that way.
Thus, I propose that the government needs to regulate the internet only to the point that it spurs lots of competition. Congress needs to introduce laws that make it easier for new ISPs to start up and limit how much control a single company can have regarding broadband service in any given area. That way, the free market takes over and we can finally get some good fucking internet service.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Kwh is not the dumbest unit ever. Edison started selling electricity in Horsepower/hours.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It isn't illegal to use commercial amounts of electricity in a residential zone in any place in the USA, even if it is for commercial purposes. No zoning laws cover electrical usage. Car traffic, noise, pollution, perhaps, but not electrical use. If you have a 200 amp main (typical) you are invited, yet ENCOURAGED to saturate it with use, as you are charged by the kWh. They will be thrilled you did. Need more transformer? No problem, one is on the way. Have a really old house with only 100 amp mains? They will gladly upgrade you to 200 amp service (or higher), often at little or no charge, excepting you paying your electrician to put in the new main panel. You don't even need to prove you need that much amperage.
So no, Virginia, there is no Electrical Zoning Police in your neighborhood. Use all you want, as long as you can afford it.
The interwebs works pretty much the same way. There is no such thing as "commercial internet zones" or "residential internet zones".
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Heh.
This proposal is like relegating the whole stack to a newsgroup-level of relevance.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I signed it "co-founder", the article gets that wrong. And of course I acknowledge that RMS is the founder of the Free Software movement and Open Source stands upon his shoulders, just as RMS acknowledges that Free Software existed before he came along. There are several online videos of me speaking in which I explicitly acknowledge RMS, one of them shot at the U.N. Summit on the Information Society.
Bruce Perens.
Actually, Christine Petersen coined the term "Open Source" at the meeting where the formation of a separate Open Source campaign was first discussed. She was at the time married to the nanotechnology guru Eric Drexler. I created the Open Source Definition 9 months before ESR got involved, as the Debian Free Software Guidelines. And I'm pretty clear that RMS writings came long before CaTB.
Bruce Perens.
Heh.
This proposal is like relegating the whole stack to a newsgroup-level of relevance.
I suspect that if it were actually acted on, you'd be dead on the money.
But I also suspect that the submission was deliberately provocative, designed to make the contrast between a Neutral Internet and what ISPs want as stark as possible. In effect, it seems to be saying, "What they want is not Internet, so we should quit calling it that." Right at the outset, it says:
While we have diverse views about the overall policy approach that the assurance of the open Internet entails, we note here that separating the Internet from specialized services is a dramatic advance in the discussion, one that is very helpful on its own terms to understanding the implications of various concerns surrounding this issue....
As a rhetorical stance, I like it. As a policy position, not so much.
As you rightly note, the vendors will do everything in their power to twist the definitions in order to make their proprietary model look more attractive and to subvert the influence of a truly open Internet. The authors of this work may believe that an open Internet will succeed on its merits alone. I don't. However we arrive at it, Network Neutrality is simply not negotiable.
Bemoan the ineffectual nature of government regulation as much as you like; the fact remains that, left alone, most commercial Internet providers have every financial incentive to lock down their networks.
(According to the dominant business perspective in North American and Europe, anyway. One can make compelling arguments about network effects and the collateral benefits that derive from open, end-to-end networks, but most MBAs don't -and don't want to- get it. They're all about controlling the market and sucking it dry. Profit, alas, beats planning every time.)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
The authors of this work may believe that an open Internet will succeed on its merits alone. I don't.
Why not? That's what happened with the first Internet. Take a look back at the 1980s. At that time, there were lots of proprietary networks, one per vendor, and it was difficult or impossible for users of different vendors' equipment to communicate with each other. But over in academia, the open Internet was alive and getting attention. When it went "public" and finally allowed connections to businesses and homes, everyone jumped on it. The vendors all tried their mightiest to convince everyone that they had a better network, but everyone wanted the one that was open and could connect everyone to everyone, even if it might not be the perfect one in all its details. Eventually, one by one, the vendors grudgingly moved onto the Internet, as they realized that they couldn't compete with an open network.
The obvious prediction would be that the same thing will happen after the corporations succeed in taking control of the Internet. It will devolve into a set of "walled gardens", one per comm company, with limited communication between people on different parts of the Internet. If someone can come along and offer an alternative that connects everyone to everyone else, people will once again jump on it wherever they are permitted access.
Maybe this is how IPv6 will take over. The people working on it should be pushing for ways to sneak it into our homes and businesses in a manner that's beyond the control of the powerful commercial interests. If they can manage this, we can relegate IPv4 to the backwaters of walled gardens like IBM's and DEC's networks were back in the 1980s. The comm companies can then control the connectivity in their walled gardens all they like, and their customers will slowly find ways of getting onto the real, open Internet2, just as we all did in the early 1990s.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
You mean you were expecting the usual crowd of horse's asses on Slashdot and suddenly there's the horse's mouth :-)
Bruce Perens.
Sigh. I signed it as "co-founder of the Open Source movement in software", in an attempt to get some credibility for the issue. Unfortunately a lot of the folks who were in favor of Net Neutrality in congress aren't going to be in congress any longer. We are in a really bad position and this is an attempt to get some movement back on the field.
Bruce Perens.
Don't forget Facebook.