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<DIV>Greetings to you, as well,</DIV>
<DIV> Isn't that garden "public" in the sense that it is land provided by the government or the university without charge, other than widely distributed taxes, so that caring individuals will have a prominent place to grow and enjoy the roses? It is no less beautiful and no less open to the public for it being government-owned, but it is NOT owned by the public (all people) simply because fine people volunteer all the work and plants?</DIV>
<DIV> Governments, corporations and individuals have invested machines, assorted hardware and man-hours for years now to support what we have come to call the internet, but just try and remove that equipment from its current places without payment to some other "public" facility and see how far you get! Yes, many have come together to donate much time and programming (gardening time and tools) to the "internet" (garden) over the years, as well, but that is the contribution, not the internet itself!!! Were the garden truly public, in the same way you say the Internet is, you could build on it or dig it up and plant corn there if you wanted, without legal recourse of the government or the university, but I bet you can't do that, can you?</DIV>
<DIV> Just a few thoughts from a novice that thinks about what I see.</DIV>
<DIV>-Karl E. Peters</DIV>
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<DIV>-------- Original Message --------<BR>Subject: RE: [governance] a very grounded and divergent perspective on<BR>Net<BR>From: Lee W McKnight <lmcknigh@syr.edu><BR>Date: Sat, December 27, 2008 7:56 pm<BR>To: <governance@lists.cpsr.org>, "Parminder"<BR><parminder@itforchange.net>, <governance@lists.cpsr.org>, "Milton<BR>L Mueller" <mueller@syr.edu><BR>Cc: "Michael Gurstein" <gurstein@gmail.com>, "Brian Beaton"<BR><brianbeaton@knet.ca>, <steveinfos@gmail.com><BR><BR>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>Hi & best wishes to all for a Happy New Year.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>I must agree with Avri & Parminder: TCP/IP as a public/non-proprietary protocol i.e. owned by noone and hence everyone is the defining feature of the Internet. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>That noone owns the Internet, and it is maintained by a volunteer group of protocol gardeners, makes it similar to a rose garden in a public park near campus here in Syracuse. The garden is more scenic in summer, while the Internet can bloom year round, so I guess the analogy doesn;t quite hold. But I'll dig a bit deeper anyway.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>That this thin public layer, maintained by many private individuals, enables private (as well as public including governmental) innovations above in applications and services and below in physical network technologies is what makes it valuable and useful. There I agree with Milton. So yes</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2> the 'Internet' exists across many private, and some public networks and that is a most beneficial feature - but the thin line is all of ours. Even if we stay out of the protocol dirt.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>And we can tip our caps to the IETFers who have maintained and extended the Internet over the years through excellent protocol gardening, without automaticaly agreeing with McTim that that is all that is needed for the Internet to grow in 2009 and beyond. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>Lee</FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></span></body></html>