[OSGeo-Discuss] Memorandum For Members and Affiliates of the Intergalactic CIVIC Network

[Miles Fidelman]

Hi Folks,

After spending a lot of time building networks & systems - including 
things like military sims & municipal broadband networks - I find myself 
trying to organize a community scale "suburban redevelopment" effort - 
essentially crowdsourcing an infrastructure master planning & 
redevelopment program for a collection of aging subdivisions.

I'm trying to build on developments in the crisis response arena, and 
the work of folks like the Open Planning Project (and some of my own 
work at The Center for Civic Networking) to launch a new generation of 
"community networks" and plant the seeds for a wave of "suburban 
redevelopment."

I figure that folks in the OSGEO community are right smack in the 
demographic that's ready, willing, and able to roll up our sleeves and 
start rebuilding our corners of the world.  I ask you to join me.  Or at 
least take a look at what we're up to.

Here's a memo I've been distributing, inspired by Licklider's original 
memo, kicking off what become the Internet.  And take a look at 
civic.net - which currently redirects to a kickstarter that provides 
some details of what we're up to.

I look forward to you reactions - and, hopefully, to some of you getting 
involved.

Best,

Miles Fidelman, Chief Engineer, Civic.Net


--- this just went out to a select group of email lists --- also check 
out "civic.net" ---

My Fellow Internet Engineers,

In 1963, JCR Licklider wrote his famous "Memorandum For Members and 
Affiliates of the Intergalactic Computer Network" - calling together 
what ultimately evolved into the IETF - and bringing the Internet into 
existence, largely by demand pull.

A few years later, in 1968, he and Bob Taylor wrote "In a few years, men 
will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face 
to face" and Stewart Brand opened the Whole Earth Catalog with the 
words, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it" - and then we 
proceeded to wire the world, and build ourselves the beginnings of a 
hive of minds.

Now it's time to put both the net, and what we learned while building 
it, to work, rebuilding all of our other infrastructure.

Today, I call for a Community Engineering Task Force, and 
community-level /*Engineering Working Groups *- /with the goal of 
launching a wave of infrastructure overhaul in our communities, from the 
ground up, akin to the transformation of campus & enterprise networks 
that stemmed from our work, building & deploying the Internet. *And I 
ask that you join me in launching /Civic.Net, as a network of local 
working groups.

/*--- Background ---

A little history:  In 1992, the net opened to the public, people started 
calling for "Electronic Democracy" and "Electronic Town Halls" - and l 
left BBN, recruited a few intrepid souls to launch The Center for Civic 
Networking, with the notion of bringing IETF-style "rough consensus & 
running code" to bear, as a way to reinvent town meeting government 
(thank you to the Boston Computer Society, and then President Tracy 
Licklider, Lick's son, for our initial funding).  We ran some 
experiments - supporting a series of hybrid town meetings, in Cambridge, 
on "sustainability & growth planning" -
and ended up focusing on infrastructure development - the first 
high-speed Internet in a public library (courtesy of Steve Cisler & 
Apple's Library of Tomorrow Program, Continental Cablevision, and PSInet 
- thank you Bill Schrader).  Then the USDA paid us to build one of the 
first e-markets, and then came the Telecom Act - and I was off helping 
local governments defend their rights-of-way from rampant construction, 
and launching municipal broadband networks.

Now, I find myself on the Board & Long-Range Capital Planning committee 
of an aging condominium complex - as we struggle to find a model for 
comprehensive overhaul and upgrade for our buildings, grounds, utilties 
- in concert with our immediate neighbors.  60 years ago, William Levitt 
developed the model for building, and financing, suburban subdivisions - 
now a lot of our communities are falling apart, and we face the 
challenge of "fleet modernization" for subdivisions of multi-family 
buildings.  And if you think herding cats to build the Internet was (& 
remains) a challenge, just try getting a condo board to think about a 
"big dig" in miniature (a "tiny dig"), and motivating lots of players 
towards a "Flag Day."

I've come to believe that following the Internet model, creating "demand 
pull" from the edges (owners, residents), and crowdsourcing, are the 
only viable way forward, for rebuilding suburban America, before we see 
more catastrophic system failures like Flint MI's water system, North 
Andover's exploding gas mains, Miami's Champlain Towers crumbling into 
the Atlantic while their board rearranged deck chairs by the pool.

And the need is urgent - I've been hearing more and more horror stories 
about skyrocketing operations & maintenance costs, people getting socked 
by multiplying condo fees, and of insane assessments to cover major 
renovations.

--- Current Activities ---

*We've launched a fledgling **/Community Engineering Working Group, 
/**here on Nagog Hill, in Acton, MA* - and are busily recruiting 
participants from our condo complex, our neighbors, and the shopping and 
office park adjacent to us.  Our goal is to run a serious infrastructure 
planning exercise - the kind that cities, towns, college campuses, 
military bases perform - but that stop at the borders of private 
developments. Inside, the task falls to condominium boards, property 
managers, homeowners associations - groups that function as local 
governments & public works departments, without the know-how, staff, or 
vendor support to carry out the job.

I'm bringing my experience in big-system business development, and 
community development, to bear, and *seeking**help from the broader 
community.*  Our goal is to run a prototype /planning & acquisitions 
//experiment/ - starting with soliciting vendor demonstrations (can you 
say "bidders' conference" or "Interop-like trade show & shownet 
exercise."  The goal is to figure out how to solve our problems, and 
finance the exercise - building on our experience in building the 
Internet, and more recent experience in volunteer crisis response 
(crisis mapping, fire jumping), grass-roots driven community development 
(Community Foundations, Community Development Corporations & 
Initiatives, Habitat for Humanity, Burning Man), do it all "on camera" a 
la "This Old House" ("This Old Subdivision"), and develop an ecosystem 
to support other communities seeking to replicate our work (think a 
cross between the /Whole Earth Catalog/, the /WELL, /the IETF 
Secretariat, crowdsourcing platforms, and "grand challenge" exercises).

--- *And We Need Your Help//*/--- /

Right now, I'm an Army of one - as organizer of our local working group, 
project engineer, and a cross between John Postel & the folks at CNRI in 
supporting an ad hoc engineering & planning process.

I've been busily recruiting some advisors & academic support (an IAB 
equivalent), and now I'm trying to pull together a larger base of 
supporters - an audience for "This Old Subdivision," collaborators, 
vendors, sponsors, organizers & working groups in other communities.

It's all very amorphous right now - as when Lick first issued his 
/Memorandum/ - or when Torvalds posted his "I'm building a unix clone" 
news post.  I've launched a Kickstarter - mostly as a focal point from 
which to launch a blog, podcast, journal, membership network - and 
generate some seed money.  [I've been funding this out of my pocket - 
but I'm all in - going full time, and hiring some staff, is beyond my 
resources.  I figure that 2500 "subscribers" or "members" - at $10/month 
will go a long way (as would a few corporate sponsors, a la the IETF or 
W3C).]

So... I encourage folks to visit civic.net - which redirects to 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mfidelman/civicnet-network-we-must-to-fix-our-future 
- read about what we're doing, tune in, turn on, sign up, get on the 
bus, get with the program.  NETWORK WE MUST, if we hope to survive in 
this new millenium of ours!

And... if you're seriously interested - want to get something going in 
your community, have a solution to offer to communities, want to help me 
make this whole thing happen, are in a position to get us some press or 
other visibility - please contact me directly!

Miles Fidelman
Civic.Net


-- 

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20240527/7947e500/attachment.htm>