Free Community Network . ARCHIVE

FCN is an inactive, archival site. For information contact : info@fcn.net

Sister Corruption & Brother Big

Toronto Freenet

Non Governmental Organization draft

DIGITAL BILL OF RIGHTS 1995

Postel 19/10/98

Internet Governance 1/98

Internet Engineering Political Task Force 9/98

IFWP IANA-2 Board Nominations 9/98

"Best of" IANA-2 Nominees! 9/98

WIPO Wipe out! 9/98

Towards IANA II 03/98

Founding Convention 2/98
IETF BOF Proposal 1/98

alt RFC 12/96

The internet belongs to everyone not just the rich and powerful. Free Community Network supports an open, democratic IP Address, namespace and Internet Governance structure. In this spirit we have abandoned all claims over the .FCN Top Level Domain Name space and ceased actively registering holders of FCN Secondary Level Domain names. FCN is now advocating new systems of Internet addressing that do not require central authorities, top down decision making and all the related abuses and problems.

FCN depends on volunteers and contributed resources. Our server has been replaced by a generous corporate donor. Thank you! If you can help with other resources contact:

info@fcn.net.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FCN is now situated on a brand spanking new 300 MHz Pentium with 64 Megs of RAM running Slackware Linux. The mother-board of our original 120 MHz Pentium was damaged in a power surge and has been generously replaced by a corporate donor. As well the recent donation of two 2 gig hard drives and an additional 64 Megs of RAM mean we have hot back-up capabilities and wicked internal server preformance. Our sincere and heartfelt thanks go out to the good people who donated this equipment! The current bottleneck is our connection to the net via a 128K ISDN line that is as many hops away from the backbone as humanly possible. The next planned expansion and request from donors is to place the new computer on the backbone somewhere in the Atlanta area. Currently, no matter how efficient the server we have 6% packet loss. Our current wish list includes the more direct Atlanta connection to the backbone, A G-3 Mac for our Toronto location and perhaps even some funding so we can begin creating community network initiatives.

Please discuss any donation opportunities with Bob Allisat. Technical questions may be sent to Gard Abrahamsen. Thank you for your interest in Free Community Network!

ABOUT

Free Community Network was founded in 1996 by Gard Abrahamsen and Bob Allisat with the assistance of Graham Buller. FCN was the International branch of what was then planned to become a comprehensive Community Network Program here in Toronto. While other projects envisioned have either failed or gone unrealized the FCN has been a moderate success and is slowly gaining momentum and popularity. With an increasing International reputation and a slow resolution of it's mission FCN has a long way to go. So far so good.

FCN went live to the WWW in 1996 using prototype active Domain Name Registration software. We no longer register domains under FCN.NET nor do we claim any stewardship over .FCN as a top level domain. We wish to participate a free and independant Internet governance structure in the future. We will not pay outrageous sums of money to do so or allow over-centralized regulation to interfere in our activities. We believe decentralized and diverse models of Addressing and number assignment with Little or no regulatory supervision is the most effective way to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens worldwide..

FCN is run by volunteers Bob Allisat as primary spokesperson and administrator and Gard Abrahamsen as technical and computer system Administrator. We have no budget, no formal structure except for this WWW site and have not and will not incorporate or otherwise organize ourselves. We define ourselves as a public asset of the Internet Community. We expect people using our service to help, respect and support our activities. If you do not like what we do or disagree with our work or principles in any way we ask that you simply move on and ignore us in future. We hope to simply continue as we have, freely providing a useful outlet for many good people and interesting groups.

Should it become necessary FCN will seek protection through legal incorporation and in levying fees but we'd rather not go this way. The goal was to evolve as a part of the virtual organism and to simply do what we do. It remains to be seen whether or not this structure is feasible. A lot of it depends upon how we all find a way to work together. More depends upon the financial support and ethical behaviour you display.

FCN is all about protecting our rights, liberties and freedoms as well as encouraging Community Networking initiatives. If we ever generate sufficient financial support we would love to fund and seed community networks worldwide with a focus on the so-called "developing" regions as well as in alleged "under-privilged" areas of the "first" world. We shall see what transpires. FCN is here to serve you. Please help us in return with contributions of money or resources. Contact bob@fcn.net for details. Thank you for your interest in Free Community Network.