Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 17:49:30 -0500 From: "Colin J. Williams" X-Accept-Language: en To: reinder@rustema.nl Subject: Rise_and_Fall_DDS Dear Mr. Rustema, Thank you for making your thesis publicly available. I worked with the Toronto Freenet in the 1995/1996 period. They experienced many of the problems you describe so well. In Toronto, there was a democratic structure at the start. Unfortunately, as the grant of $400,000 expired, none of those elected to office was willing to address, in a realistic manner the need to have a good funding model. Too much faith was placed in advertising. The Freenet software, very soon became outdated. A significant investment of volunteer or other labour would be required to change to WWW service. The Toronto Freenet never did contribute much to the civil political process, except to the extent that it provided access to the Usenet new groups. There was a desire to make information about civil groups and associations available, but this required support from the associations. In that period, the associations had no understanding that providing information on the web could help them. Public access terminals were set up in various libraries. As time went by, the Toronto Public Library provided many more terminals with full access to the web and to the library's catalogue. Thus, the Freenet terminals became redundant. I supported the Toronto Freenet in those days for two prime reasons (1) with 45,000 registered members, it provided Internet access to many who could not otherwise afford it and (2) it seemed to be a tool to encourage greater participation the the political process. For (1), it was a moderate success for perhaps 2 to 3 years. For (2) something is needed as political participation is in decline in Canada ( we are not down to American levels, but moving that way), but the Freenet contributed virtually nothing. The Government of Canada has set up about 4,000 community access points across Canada, but we are not told how many have survived. This has helped to reduce the digital divide, but much more needs to be done. Thanks again for a very interesting paper. Best wishes. Colin W.