From: searle@tdg.res.uoguelph.ca ("Gregory L. Searle") Date: Sat, 16 Jul Freespace Summary Document ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Telecommunity Development Group Phone: (519) 767 - 0145 Email: info@tdg.uoguelph.ca WWW: http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/ The Telecommunity Development Group is a worker co-operative. A worker co-operative is a company in which the workers share equal responsibility and ownership in the organization. We are primarily concerned with providing rural and urban communities with tools to enhance communication, organization, and economic development at the community level. Around the world, people are using computers to communicate both internationally and locally. These tools are providing people with powerful new ways to promote community development, business success, and individual well-being. Local communication within communities is often referred to as community networking, and its most important function is to give citizens the ability to organize and collaborate with other communities in order to meet specific needs that might otherwise be ignored. Electronic community networks can strengthen and vitalize existing community networks. The global Internet is a world-wide communication system that uses computers to carry information around the world at no cost to the user. Electronic community networking became a reality when people using the Internet began to communicate locally about issues and ideas that were unique to their physical community. However, these electronic community networking tools have only recently become affordable and practical for the average person. The Telecommunity Development Group has worked hard to create a strategy for electronic community networking that is sustainable, community-owned, and free for everyone. This strategy is called FreeSpace. COMMERCIAL ACCESS PROVIDERS Public access to the global Internet is limited at best. Commercial access providers are businesses that charge you to dial up and spend time on their computer, which has a connection to the internet. While a user can connect to the Internet on such a system, it is extremely difficult or impossible to provide community information and promote meaningful communication. However, because of the business component, commercial access providers have generally proven to be sustainable. ELECTRONIC COMMUNITY NETWORKS, OR FREENETS Electronic community networks provide an alternative to the commercial service model. Electronic community networks are designed to be easy to use the first time, and are intended to provide free access to anyone. This type of volunteer-based electronic community networking is often referred to as Freenet. An electronic community network is usually located on a computer in a central location. Many people can connect simultaneously to an electronic community network's central computer from their own homes, schools, or workplaces, using a personal computer, modem device, and an ordinary telephone line. Programs running on the central computer give people access to an astonishing variety of information sources, such as information about education, government, recreation, or health care. More importantly, these programs allow users to talk to each other. Electronic mail, discussion forums, and community information are some of the most basic examples of services you'll find on electronic community networks. The kinds of information that are placed on the central computer for public access are usually determined by the volunteers who run the computer. PROBLEMS WITH FREENETS However, because Freenets rely on infrequent donations and government grants, many Freenets are experiencing financial difficulty, which is reflected in quality of public access. For example, the National Capital Freenet in Ottawa is immensely popular and has a membership of well over 20,000 people. Until very recently, however, there were only 100 phone lines available to the 20,000 members! Many Freenet users and volunteers are now asking themselves how Freenets can become sustainable. Another factor fuelling the frustration of Freenet users is the outdated and inadequate interface commonly employed on community network computers. This, too, is a byproduct of the lack of personnel and resources to further develop system software specifically dedicated to application on electronic community networks. Electronic community network software does not take advantage of the revolutionary advances made in developing graphical user interfaces, point-and-click windowing environments, and sound. These graphical and audio interfaces are vitally important in ensuring that handicapped and illiterate individuals can become active citizens of community networks. Problems with sustainability and interface, coupled with limitations on online time and system usage, have forced many community network users to seek access with commercial providers. INTRODUCING THE FREESPACE MODEL FreeSpace is a flexible new model in the evolution of public access to the Internet, which will enable electronic community networks to diversify and thrive. FreeSpace has been designed to capture the best aspects of both commercial access providers and Freenets. However, some of the most important aspects of the FreeSpace model are relatively new. Central FreeSpace themes include sustainability, citizen empowerment, equitable distribution of access, a strong community emphasis and physical presence in the community, participatory development of resources, and constant self-evaluation. IDEOLOGY Freenets were originally conceived as the Internet equivalent of public broadcasting. The developers of FreeSpace had a difficult time accepting this idea. The concept of full community ownership and direction at the local level was much more appealing, and we have sought to embody this ideal in our organizational strategy. Traditionally, technology has set the standard to which people had to adapt. FreeSpace operates on a model of participatory development that directs technology to meet the needs of human beings. Each individual has a unique way of learning and interacting. The individual should be able to adapt FreeSpace to his or her own needs and requirements without having to read technical manuals or devoting excessive amounts of time learning how to use FreeSpace. We anticipate that FreeSpace will promote democracy and community development not only because more can participate in a valuable resource which they may share ownership in, but mainly because they can participate the way they want, in a more organic manner. SUSTAINABILITY FreeSpace encourages a wide range of sources of revenue to support the development and enhancement of services, providing creative and dynamic solutions to the critical barriers that have partially obstructed the progressive development of autonomous electronic community networks. The FreeSpace model is able to integrate volunteer action and community ownership with a for-profit service which is financially viable. Revenues are used to subsidize a sustainable community network infrastructure and universal public access. Within the FreeSpace model there are four initial avenues for generating revenue; the involvement of business through customer service bulletin boards, forums, discreet advertising and virtual transaction; through value-added services such as newsfeeds and online arcades; through consultation and professional Internet workshops; and through fees for extended user access. ACCESS For a variety of reasons, Freenets have largely been developed in urban centres. FreeSpace was designed to bridge the urban-rural gap and provide access in both areas through a planned sharing of resources. Further marginalization of rural areas in Canada can be reduced if rural communities develop electronic networks. Why? Because electronic community networks give community members a voice - in their local, regional, and national affairs. FreeSpace provides an assortment of tools that any member of a community can use to gather information from government, make contacts with organizations within the community, use as a meeting place to organize and mobilize resources and people around community issues. SOFTWARE AND TOOLS Groups and individuals using FreeSpace have a suite of tools at their disposal which they are free to customize and utilize as they chose. FreeSpace will stress at all levels how and why tools may be used to organize and mobilize community efforts, to ensure that each new user is aware of the potential and power of the community network they are a part of. FreeSpace will also make popular Internet tools free to users. It is common for network administrators to worry about "telneting to non-standard ports (connecting to recreational sites)", "Internet Relay Chat", and other bandwidth-intensive services. However, reliable sources of revenue will mean more bandwidth and full public access to the Internet wherever FreeSpaces are built. Technically, FreeSpace offers a completely new set of interfaces and programs which are designed to operate remotely (via modem or the "telnet" program on the Internet) and significantly increase ease of use. FreeSpace uses a cutting-edge Graphical User Interface (GUI) called RIP (Remote Imaging Protocol) which allows users to have point-and-click control over the multimedia information environment. RIP, which employs a special client program which resides on the user's personal computer, is an especially flexible interface, supporting object-oriented graphics and digital sound. All this can be delivered to the most basic IBM or Macintosh personal computers at 1200 baud and up. FreeSpace is based in a collaborative virtual environment in which users can freely interact and communicate in real time with each other and visitors from around the world. From virtual offices or homes users will be able to access the World Wide Web, write e-mail, participate in discussions, or compose papers, and when they are through they will be able to walk out to the town square and play a game of tic tac toe or virtual chess with their neighbour. This collaborative environment is most useful for organizing and learning socially, and for holding real-time discussions and approximations of private face-to-face conversations. This technology will SIGNIFICANTLY increase the functionality of the so-called "village metaphor" which is currently used by some administrators to organize community information in an intuitive manner. OWNERSHIP AND ORGANIZATION Because FreeSpace seeks to share resources among different urban and rural communities, it is important that each distinct geographical community be represented and have its own set of menus and volunteers to maintain them. The FreeSpace model endorses an interdependent relationship between autonomous electronic community networks and a central service provider. A consumer co-operative is an organization which is made up of consumers who want to be able to offer services to themselves and co-members. In a consumer co-operative, no one may own more than one share and every customer is encouraged to become a member. Non- profit consumer co-operatives are ideal organizational structures for FreeSpaces, decentralizing and popularizing control of the electronic community network and providing volunteers with a recognized strategy for organizing, financing, and running their system. These user-owned organizations could apply for charitable status and seek donations and support to build public access centres within their communities. With a nominal one-time fee a FreeSpace user would be able to join the FreeSpace co-operative and obtain one voting share. With this voting share FreeSpace users will be able to participate in shaping the destiny of their community's FreeSpace co-operative. Each FreeSpace co-operative owns or leases its equipment and organizes independently to meet specific community needs. A for-profit worker co-operative services all the community FreeSpace co-operatives in the region under mutually-defined contract. This worker co-operative provides consultation, training, hardware maintenance, and Internet connectivity to each local community FreeSpace co-operative, giving volunteers the tools and the training necessary to build useful resources online. The worker co- operative is responsible for sustaining itself and the hardware used by the local FreeSpace co-ops, employing the strategies outlined above under sustainability. The professional staff are furthermore responsible for ensuring and/or developing new community network technologies and for upgrading modem pools and bandwidth. By focusing the challenging technical and infrastructure demands of the community network within a viable for-profit worker co-operative, the FreeSpace model integrates the best of both worlds, enabling sustainability while concentrating ownership and development at the community level. The Telecommunity Development Group is: Dr. Don Richardson, Researcher, Consultant and community liaison Paul Graham, Consultant, Developer, Technician Gord Lipp, Developer and Technician Greg Searle, Research and Development, Consultant John Stevenson, Planning Joel Weekes, Program Administration Rebekah Jamieson, Program Administration David Johnston, Associate Researcher and Community Liaison Gavin Nesbitt, Community Liaison FreeSpace Summary Document copyright 1994 Telecommunity Development Group; permission to distribute in its entirety, including this notice, freely granted.