Concerned about TC becoming a Bureaucracy By Michael Silvestrini Realtime Online Ottawa, 1800 hr, Aug. 15, '94. For the most part, the discussion focused on Telecommunities Canada and the role it should play in promoting the establishment, use and governing of freenets across the country. The participants expressed deep concerns about the possibility of TC becoming a bureaucracy preventing freenets from evolving rather than supporting them; this concern was shared by many based on the proposed TC bylaws and that some of these bylaws make absolutely no sense at all. It was suggested that some bylaws be removed from the list and many more be inspected for further enhancement or wording. As it is evident, freenets are all about the communities that they serve and hence any decisions to be made should take into consideration each freenet’s user base and theenvironment it operates in. For example, what'’s good for NCF may not be very goo for Victoria Freenet and therefore, a sense of making the community control crucial decisions about their freeents should be emphasized and not overlooked. The question is: What should the main and sole role of TC? Are the current proposed bylaws written in stone? What does the public think TC’s mandate should be? Should TC have contacts with freenet operators in the U.S and elsewhere in the world? Some of the answers include? * promoting entrepeneurship * helping communities establish their freenets, from coast to coast. * applying the Ontario Work Co-op program where TC offers free help and services for newly established freenets. * providing the financial know-how to make freenets economically sustainable. * providing the technical know-how to make freenets technically sustainable. * providing advice as to what freenets should be protected against in case something goes bad. We don’t want to see a freenet get sued. TC should also be able to prevent redundancy acros the board and form a lobby group to pressure the politicians to sit and listen. There should be some co-operation between TC and NPTN for greater North-American freenet sustainability. That is basically what the discussion focused about. -- Realtime Online - Professional Conference Reporting Team Rosaleen Dickson, Ottawa ac174@freenet.carleton.ca. Pierre Bourque, Michel Careau, Shady Kanfi, Charles King, Andrea Kujala, Jules Lafrance, Bruce MacDonald, Robt Rattey, Natalie Roth, Michael Silvestrini, Stephen Toy.