Bill Lovell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 04:54 PM 4/27/99 -0700, Greg Skinner wrote:
>>I've been giving what you have written some thought and I came to the
>>conclusion that the "ecommercenet" you claim people with commercial
>>interests should create exists. It just so happens that as a result
>>of the NSFnet agreements drafted and signed in 1992 that the
>>"ecommercenet" was allowed to communicate with NSFnet (and other
>>networks running TCP/IP) according to a set of agreed-upon policies.
>>A lot of this is documented online; I have found much of it at
>>www.merit.edu,
>So how come a search on that site with key words such as "commerce"
>and "NSF" or even "internet" yields zilch?
The NSFnet agreements did not specify what types of networks NSFnet
was able to communicate with. The agreements allowed NSFnet to
communicate with other networks if it was felt in NSFnet's best
interest to do so. So among those networks were any "ecommercenets"
that elected to communicate with them.
This is the relevant clause of the NSFnet AUP:
(9) Communication incidental to otherwise acceptable use, except for
illegal or specifically unacceptable use.
BTW, there is more literature on their site that specifically
discusses the opening of NSFnet to commercial traffic, such as:
Message: 8663885, 22 lines
Posted: 12:32pm EDT, Fri May 24/91, imported: 12:35pm EDT, Fri May 24/91
Subject: ANS commercial traffic
To: Eric M. Aupperle, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is to confirm our agreement on the flow of commercial traffic across
the NSF sponsored gateways to the T3 network.
NSF agrees that ANS may move commercial traffic in both directions across the
NSF sponsored Backbone gateways, providing that:
(1) ANS recovers at least the average cost of the commercial use that
traverses the NSF sponsored gateways.
(2) Excess revenues recovered above costs for this use after tax will be
placed in a pool to be distributed.
(3) An ANS resource allocation committee will be formed with representation
from the participating NSF sponsored gateway management, other network
organizations, the NSF and ANS to distribute those funds with the objective
of further building national and regional infrastructure, and
(4) MERIT and ANS ensures that the attachment and services sponsored by the
NSF under Merit's Cooperative Agreement with the NSF is not diminished.
NSF, MERIT and ANS will agree on the technical means of compliance with the
points outlined above.
I should point out that there was policy regarding advertising in the AUP:
(7) Announcements of new products or services for use in research or
instruction, but not advertising of any kind.
However, this pertained to the NSFnet backbone only. Attaching networks
were free to establish their own AUPs.
The main point I'm trying to make (particularly for Ronda) is that all
these attaching networks used the same name and address space of what
had already existed, so in effect these new networks became part of
the Internet.
--gregbo
