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Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 22:42:09 -0800
To: Michael Ramendick <ramen@imb.mb.free.net>
From: tomj@wps.com (Tom Jennings)
Subject: Re: Fido & Communism
X-Charset: Cyrillic

>In echo areas in Russian Fidonet, we have a discussion. Some,
>including me, say that Fido is a free info exchange system and
>therefore requires capitalism, so Communism in it is inappropriate.
>Others say that we 'can not know' the position of the actual
>founders of the net. So I decided to ask The Founder. So are Fidonet
>and Communism compatible? Or does the Net require freedom for existance?

FidoNet was designed by a gay anarchist, who trusts himself and the
people that he personally knows. Yankee saying: "Good fences make good
neighbors."

Self-determination and the physical ability to speak (not some "right"
allowed by any group of people) is what FidoNet was designed for -- due
to the nodelist design, neither you -- nor anyone else -- can *stop*
another person from "speaking" with FidoNet. Some policy may disallow
you, but short of visiting your house and assaulting you, they cannot
stop you.

I know that the Policy says we should not be peer-oriented. But we are
not talking about any administrative measures. I simply want to know
the opinion of the One Who Was First ;-)

Personally, I consider "policy4" to be a smelly old crock of shit. You
can quote me on that, only you will find many people have heard me say
it before... :-)

Note that "POLICY4" contains valid procedural advice and information --
how to assign numbers, how to define a functional system, and such. For
that it's fine. Otherwise, the actual policy is intended to let a small
number of people control the behavior and speech of another, larger
group of people. I immediately mistrust people who propose such things.
If they are young enough, I give them time to get over it :-)

--
World Power Systems -- San Francisco CA


Ref: Fidonet History FAQ, revision 19b (Russian) (07-Mar-1999)
http://www.vspu.kirov.ru/~dmitry/Fido/CHRONO/fidohistfaq.htm
By: Tom Jennings