Alternatives for a National Community of Networked Communities Should our capacity to share our experience in developing a new FreeNet reside inside NCF itself, or outside it, or both? The "How" of helping other communities sets the "what" of the resources we need to get it done. Any means we acquire to the serve the end of establishing community computing should not become an end in itself. For example, our discussion of objectives should be about the means to proliferate FreeNets, not about how to establishment a national organization. Some alternatives include: * NCF could decide simply to respond to requests as they occur. In that case, we should specify and obtain the resources, tools and methods by which we will do this. Fairly soon other communities will reach a level where they can share the load. Then the method of spread becomes the buddy system, or "EACH ONE TEACH ONE." * We could support the establishment of a CENTRAL NATIONAL ORGANIZATION on the model of the US National Public Telecomputing Network, including defining the resources, tools and methods by which it would do this. New FreeNets would "join" NPTN as a condition of obtaining start-up help. * We could aim for something BASED ON PROVINCES (or regions), since the national telecommunications networks are set up that way. Also, when the number of FreeNets grows and there is increased competition for national grant funds, local community support is more likely to be obtained within the province. If we went this route, somebody might still pull together something at the higher (and out of sight) national level. Also, FreeNets might become "controlled" by one type of provincial department. * We could support a decentralized and informal association of member organizations, a network of networks (a community of networked communities?). This is the INTERNET MODEL, where we use FreeNets to re-define the Internet as a community resource. The Internet is not an "organization." It has no centre and thus no membership hierarchies, and its regional organizations are loose and varied. Nobody owns it. In this alternative we ask, "What do we need to include in FreeNet so that others can use it to learn how to do it themselves?" When they ask for a visit, we say, "NCF can't do that, but there are individuals who will do it for a fee." When somebody calls for a formal national organization, we resist.