Re: [ICANN-EU] Here I am

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2000-08-15 15:29:52 +0000, Bertram Gebauer wrote:

> Our director will be able to bring some new ideas, but he surely
> will not be able to change the world by being "director". All he
> can do: He can report his impressions to the users. He can
> explain to everybody, what's going on with ICANN, who's making
> the rules and why.

That's pretty obvious.  The question which is of particular interest
here is: What kind of new ideas do the candidates have?  What
interests are you going to speak up for?  A well-argued minority
opinion can be important and fruitful.

It would be nice if you could elaborate on this, too.

> Within our Union 82 local networks are organized. The local
> networks are - according to tax law - devided into an educational
> and a technical part. Within the educational part we have about
> 50.000 Users, within the technical part (including
> Internet-Access) about 140.000.

Could you elaborate a bit on the "educational part"?  Is this the
"mail & news only" access I was told about several years ago?

> For some years we were supported by the bavarian government. In
> 1998, when I became president, we lost this support. 

I suppose you don't want to imply any causal connection here, right?
;-))

> We had to work very hard to keep our organisations alive, but we
> were mostly successful.

Congratulations.  How's the Bürgernetz funded today?  How does it
compare to commercially-available internet access, with which it
seems to compete at first sight?

And how is your perspective different from, say, an ISP or Telekom
executive?  (Leaving your first-hand experience with Bavarian policy
aside for the moment.)

-- 
Thomas Roessler                         <roessler@does-not-exist.org>