>> On 25/03/2015 12:14, "Jon Morby (FidoNet)" <j...@fido.net> wrote: >>> >>> Someone described it to me along the lines of ³kids leave >>> Uni/College in Brighton and have jobs to go to Š they can either >>> bugger off back up north and sign on up there, or they can try >>> to make a go of something in Brighton / Hove / Worthing / etc >>> where they¹ve been living for the last 3-4 years anyway and >>> maybe get somewhere² Š the idea of the Digital Catapult and the >>> BDX and Wired Sussex / et al is to try and see if we can help >>> make that happen.
> Indeed … but they have to start somewhere and at least they’re trying > to do something - within the framework they have been given > > (yes it might be GiGo .. but at least they’re doing something .. and > it might work if the planets align :) There is a chicken and egg relationship between Internet Exchange infrastructure in a given region, and the community/ecosystem which supports it, that it in turn supports. If one expects the introduction of one to solve the lack of the other, it is doomed to fail. Been there, seen that, multiple times. Community building is not something you can do in months, or even a year, it requires a long-haul commitment, with a longer cycle than is generally consistently deliverable from public servants of various flavours. This is no longer the 1990s where the density of IXPs per country was low enough to convey a big enough first-mover advantage that the infrastructure egg could shortcut the community chicken. Infrastructure and community building need to go hand-in-hand. I'm not making any value-judgement of such initiatives (indeed wearing my Open-IX hat more better IXPs are a good thing if done right), just saying it's not a trivial undertaking. Good luck. Keith
