Talk:Ends and Means

Thanks for drafting this document! You did a good job in summarizing the essential issues we have now, and providing an overview of the/a solution.

I will not address the small typos that i stumbled across, that's for later when the content is finalized and a final reading is applied.

The title, 'Ends and Means of the Free Network Movement' does not fit the content completely though, in my humble opinion. I will elaborate: the document provides a solution in the form of a specific technology and architecture. How much I love the concept of the freedombox, and of the layer above it with the 'fractal mesh network' and freedom- towers, the reality is that that is merely a concept for now.

As it is, the free network movement (if one can say there is one such movement) is already using techonologies and solutions of a very heterogenous nature. In addition, there are already various initiatives (you have a nice list included in the document of US based initiatives already, but in Europe we have eg freifunk, wireless belgium, guifi) that have established and are actually using an infrastructure already.

I would say, that if we were to unite the free network movement (and this is my personal goal that I share with the people I have been grouping with already before we stumbled across eachother) we should look at all of those existing networks and think about the unification thereof. Not as in assimilation, presenting a technology or design that is supposed to surpass what is already there, but more in terms of letting all those initiatives co-exist but meanwhile plan to implement the five network freedoms in those existing infrastructures.

I can see how this could work, but I do not see it in the document (yet?).

I am not sure if the commitment to the freedombox project is central to the mission of the FNF, and if that commitment is to the exclusion of other ideas. If this is the case, I would reword the title as not to claim to be 'the free network movement'. If it is not the case, I would suggest working that into the body of the text. I would be more than willing to pick up on that task. As a last note, I think it would be good if we could add references to the claims made in the first two sections after the introduction. For example, there are claims that the network will scale better (even though there exists research that indicates that mesh networks do not scale in bandwidth availability in such a way that it can keep up with bandwidth demand) and various economical claims. If possible, those should be backed up by references, for the critical reader. If we can not find such references, perhaps it is better to forego those claims altogether.

Hope this does not come across as overly critical, I have tried to openly respond to the document. I really like the concept of the freedomtowers, and am curious about input from economists about the feasability. Would indeed communities unite to fund such a tower, or is there a danger that they will out-source this to companies that specialize in providing this service and (as is inherent for companies in a capitalist world) result in a handful of large companies that own the majority of all freedom towers?

Of course, that is not necesarily a bad thing to happen, however it does mean the fee you pay to the company is no longer just for the freedom tower as well, but in larger parts for the overhead too. Plus, it again gives those companies power over the bit-shifting operations.

Anyway, i'm digressing. As for the document, ignore the above two paragraphs.

--Gmc 11:38, 25 August 2011 (CDT)