Subject: [gaia] Comments on: draft-irtf-gaia-alternative-network-deployments

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2016 16:53:36 -0700

Hi!

I am participant in the open wireless network in Slovenia, wlan
slovenija (https://wlan-si.net/) and I am writing to provide some
feedback on the draft. I am glad people are working on it. My list of
comments is in no particular order, mostly in order of reading. I am
sorry if this will be long, but there are many issues with the draft.

Section 4.2. I think this is a very limited set of motivations. From
our network and from my experience talking to other community
networks, I would claim that many share also much more altruistic
motivations. For example, our whole network is build around principle
that some of us have abundance of Internet connectivity at home
(FTTH), so we can share part of that openly with everyone. More of us
will share it, more people will have access to Internet. Of course
there are other motivations why people participate, and everyone has a
different mix of those motivations, but I definitely think that the
list should be extended to include:

- free sharing of Internet connectivity, altruism
- various forms of activism (network neutrality guarantees,
anti-censorship, decentralization to minimize control, showing that
alternative is possible)
- building a new type of commons
- not being just a consumer, but active participant, wanting to have a
say in operations
- provide local services to local people, tighten/reconnect the
community (eg. http://tidepools.co/)
- provide alternative service in case of natural disasters and other
extreme situations
- wanting to have a space for experimentation and teaching of others,
empowering others to take their Internet connectivity into their own
hands

An example of another network describing itself with much more of what
I am writing than what is currently on the list:
https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh

All those are goals and motivations (and those are just few I
remembered without much thinking) for many community networks. I do
not think the list in section 4.2 can ever be comprehensive, but I was
really taken aback from its economy-centric bias at the moment. Most
community networks do not operate on that level. It is of course
present, but there are some other primary motivations why people are
doing it.

Section 4.4, technologies employed:

"Low-cost optical fiber systems are used to connect households in some
villages."

Isn't this section about list of technologies? Why are those villages
mentioned? Optical systems can also be used elsewhere.

Moreover, in wlan slovenija we developed free optics free-space (no
fiber) system Koruza (http://koruza.net/), which are useful especially
in high-density urban environments because of no interference.

Section 4.5, typical scenarios:

I do not see usefulness of this categorization, because almost any
network I know of outgrow and changed through time inside all these
categories. Community networks maybe start somewhere (like urban or
rural area), but then they grow and spread over the whole country,
then start connecting with other countries.

Section 5, classification of alternative networks:

Introduction again focuses on incentives. That is a very limited
perspective. I would claim that most alternative networks go beyond
just incentives, but exist because of various beliefs: about how
networks should operate, who should have control over them, the
importance of commons and community stewardship of commons, etc.

Section 5.1, community networks:

As I explained, goals and motivation here seems a pretty limited list
and I think you should include at least ones I listed above. But
probably you should do a survey and ask community networks what are
their goals and motivations, instead of trying to guess them. (If you
have done such a survey, I would love to see data.)

Technologies used: TDMA should be there, Ubiquiti gear does it by default.

Typical scenarios: all

Community Networks are large-scale: not necessary, they can also be
small, city only. Some are large scale, some are small, some are
focused on one region, some are distributed around larger region,
connected with VPN together.

"There is a shared platform (e.g.  a web site) where a minimum
coordination is performed.  This way, community members with the right
permissions have an obvious and direct form of organizational control
over the overall operation of the network (e.g.  IP addresses,
routing, etc.) in their community (not just their own participation in
the network)."

This can be true, but it is not necessary so. There are community
networks with much larger focus on decentralization. Especially with
IPv6 a lot more autoconfiguraiton is possible.

Also, phrase "this way" is strange in this context. I do not see how
control over the routing of the network has anything with the
existence of the shared platform? In wlan slovenija network we also
use a web shared platform, but that platform does not control the
network. It just helps in coordination. Network would operate even
without it, just people would have a bit harder time coordinate about
use of IP space, and learning how to configure their nodes.

So having a shared platform can have very little to do with how core
network's resources (IP addresses, routings, peerings, DNS entries,
etc.) are managed.

"A Community Network is a network in which any participant in the
system may add link segments to the network in such a way that the new
segments can support multiple nodes and adopt the same overall
characteristics as those of the joined network, including the capacity
to further extend the network.  Once these link segments are joined to
the network, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between the
previous and the new extent of the network."

Isn't this definition of the Internet? Just replace "segment" with
"autonomous system" and "community network" with "Internet". :-)

So what exactly is the property which differentiates community
networks? Maybe there is none. Maybe community networks are simply
trying to (re)build the Internet, but this time having infrastructure
owned by participants, which are not just consumers, but are
participating.

I think this is the most important characteristic. Organic growth, and
that people own the equipment, and thus the emergent network. This
should be more clearly explained. So it is not so much about
technology in community networks, but about who owns and controls
equipment (people/users/participants), and who coordinates the network
growth (people/users/participants). The line between users, providers,
participants, people gets blurred.

"In Community Networks, everybody keeps the ownership of what he/she
has contributed.

Not necessary. They can also give it away (for example equipment for
backbone nodes). In general, mostly people do not really track
ownership of equipment, because they do not care about ownership if it
is operating according to common principles. And if it is not, it
should not be in the network no matter who owns the equipment.

Section 5.4, crowdshared approaches, led by the users and third party
stakeholders

"VNOs pay the sharers and the network operators, thus creating an
incentive structure for all the actors: the end users get money for
sharing their network, the network operators are paid by the VNOs, who
in turn accomplish their socio-environmental role."

I am not sure if all networks which can be grouped under this section
really do that. In the draft itself the https://openwireless.org/
movement is listed, but no shares or money or any incentive structure
is in place there for people to share their extra Internet
connectivity.

So I would change this paragraph to:

"VNOs can be organized to pay the sharers and the network operators,
thus creating an incentive structure for all the actors: the end users
get money for sharing their network, the network operators are paid by
the VNOs, who in turn accomplish their socio-environmental role. But
VNOs can also operate on gift-economy principles, where participants
contribute to the commons by sharing their resources knowing that this
benefits all."

Section 6.2.1,  Media Access Control (MAC) protocols for wireless links

"Wireless standards ensure interoperability and usability to those who
design, deploy and manage wireless networks."

Wireless standard ensure low-cost of equipment due to economies of
scale and mass production. This is the main reason I think why WiFi is
so popular in alternative networks. You can get a device for $10. And
you can get this because everyone is producing this hardware, and the
hardware is not just made for the alternative networks. In contrast,
traditional ISPs use hardware which is developed only for them. Even
if they are big ISP, number of units is still much smaller than number
of WiFi routers produced for the global market.

Question about list of WiFi standards in this draft. Why is that
needed? Why properties and descriptions of those standards should be
in this draft? They belong to Wikipedia, or their own standard. In
this draft we can just reference those standards. Like what of all
this text is relevant to alternative networks? It is general text
which is true for any use:

"802.22 [IEEE.802-22.2011] is a standard developed specifically for
long range rural communications in TV white space frequencies and
first approved in July 2011. The standard is similar to the 802.16
(WiMax) [IEEE.802-16.2008] standard with an added cognitive radio
ability. The maximum throughput of 802.22 is 22.6 Mbps for a single 8
MHz channel using 64-QAM modulation. The achievable range using the
default MAC scheme is 30 km, however 100 km is possible with special
scheduling techniques. The MAC of 802.22 is specifically customized
for long distances - for example, slots in a frame destined for more
distant Consumer Premises Equipment (CPEs) are sent before slots
destined for nearby CPEs.

Base stations are required to have a Global Positioning System (GPS)
and a connection to the Internet in order to query a geolocation
spectrum database. Once the base station receives the allowed TV
channels, it communicates a preferred operating white space TV channel
with the CPE devices. The standard also includes a coexistence
mechanism that uses beacons to make other 802.22 base stations aware
of the presence of a base station that is not part of the same
network."

Section 7.1.2.2, mesh routing protocols

"A large number of Alternative Networks use the Optimized Link State
Routing Protocol (OLSR) as defined in [RFC3626]."

Not really. Networks use OLSR as implemented by http://olsr.org/,
which is far from the standardized OLSR in RFC3626. For example, in
practice, ETX metric is used, which is not even mentioned in RFC3626.

Also Babel should definitely be mentioned, it is used in many
networks, and it is even (properly) standardized as RFC6126. So if you
want to include a routing protocol for alternative networks with IETF
standard, you should include this one for sure.

Section 7.2.1, traffic management when sharing network resources

It is interesting that so many people believe that there have to be
some special prioritization done for sharers to be able to use APs.
But it is not necessary true. Often people connecting to open AP nodes
will be much further away from the AP than the sharer. So often just
this distance already influences that the users of open network are
prioritized less (they have higher packet loss, lower bitrate, which
is also good to limit the lowest allowed bitrate).

In community networks is also pretty common to run the network itself
on different frequencies than the APs. Some first generation mesh
networks ran everything (backbone over ad-hoc) and client-serving APs
on the same channel, but with 5 GHz spectrum and cheap dual-band
devices this is often separated now.

Section 7.3., services provided

What is this section? A non-comprehensive list of services on the
Internet and networks in general? This looks pretty useless section
which would not inform anyone reading this draft of anything about
alternative networks.

If something, then it would be interesting to talk about specialized
services developed just for community/alternative networks:

- Inter-network peering/VPNs: https://wiki.freifunk.net/IC-VPN
- Local wikis like: https://localwiki.org
- Community oriented portals: http://tidepools.co/
- Network monitoring/deployment/maintenance platforms
- VoIP sharing between networks, allowing cheap calls between countries
- Sensor networks and citizen science build by adding sensors to devices
- Community radio/TV stations

What is interesting that some networks do not even provide Internet
access. For example, in Croatia, historically, there were wireless
communities which made networks in villages just to be able to play
games.

Section 7.3.2.1, web browsing proxies

"Other services (file sharing, VoIP, etc.) are not usually allowed in
many Alternative Networks due to bandwidth limitations."

That would go against net neutrality and anti-censorship principles
which are important in many other alternative networks. So the
question how informative this sentence is, because for some maybe this
is true, for some it is not, and some probably are build just around
this. Others probably address this with innovative solutions like
internal file servers.

At the end, a general question, how would DIY ISPs
(https://www.diyisp.org/) be categorized according to this draft? To
me is unclear.

Some more projects to look into, and think how they relate to this draft:

https://rhizomatica.org/
http://www.servalproject.org/
http://villagetelco.org/

Mitar

-- 
http://mitar.tnode.com/
https://twitter.com/mitar_m

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 04:23:08 -0400

we did the same thing here with the publicaccesswifi deployment in
Nottingham couple of years ago -
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/docs/dev12.pdf

this eg is already in the draft.

I think most of the reasoning you have given should already be in the
draft..

arjuna
On 11 Apr 2016 00:53, "Mitar" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> gaia mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/gaia
>

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 02:58:24 -0700

Hi!

> I think most of the reasoning you have given should already be in the

Not sure to which part of my e-mail does this relate to? Which
reasoning exactly? The things I wrote are things I feel are not in the
draft, or are not correctly represented in the draft.

Mitar

---

From: "Jose Saldana" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 16:46:44 +0200

Hi Mitar,

First of all, thanks a lot for your detailed comments.

The main question now is this: this work started a long time ago (the first
version is from Dec 20, 2014), and after a lot of work and discussion, the
draft has already passed the Working Group Last Call, and the IRSG review.
So at this stage we cannot include modifications substantially modifying it.

We will have a look at your suggestions, and include those that we can
reasonably include, but we have to move forward, or we will never have a
document about this. The question is that if we re-open the discussion, we
will have to go back again, and this is something we should avoid.

Thanks a lot for your feedback,

Jose 

> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: gaia [mailto:[email-masked]] En nombre de Mitar
> Enviado el: lunes, 11 de abril de 2016 1:54
> Para: gaia <[email-masked]>
> Asunto: [gaia] Comments on:
draft-irtf-gaia-alternative-network-deployments
> 
> Hi!
> 
> I am participant in the open wireless network in Slovenia, wlan slovenija
> (https://wlan-si.net/) and I am writing to provide some feedback on the
draft. I am
> glad people are working on it. My list of comments is in no particular
order, mostly in
> order of reading. I am sorry if this will be long, but there are many
issues with the
> draft.
> 
> Section 4.2. I think this is a very limited set of motivations. From our
network and
> from my experience talking to other community networks, I would claim that
many
> share also much more altruistic motivations. For example, our whole
network is
> build around principle that some of us have abundance of Internet
connectivity at
> home (FTTH), so we can share part of that openly with everyone. More of us
will
> share it, more people will have access to Internet. Of course there are
other
> motivations why people participate, and everyone has a different mix of
those
> motivations, but I definitely think that the list should be extended to
> - various forms of activism (network neutrality guarantees,
anti-censorship,
> decentralization to minimize control, showing that alternative is
possible)
> - not being just a consumer, but active participant, wanting to have a say
in
> operations
> - provide local services to local people, tighten/reconnect the community
(eg.
> http://tidepools.co/)
extreme situations
> - wanting to have a space for experimentation and teaching of others,
empowering
> others to take their Internet connectivity into their own hands
> 
> An example of another network describing itself with much more of what I
am
> writing than what is currently on the list:
> All those are goals and motivations (and those are just few I remembered
without
> much thinking) for many community networks. I do not think the list in
section 4.2
> can ever be comprehensive, but I was really taken aback from its
economy-centric
> bias at the moment. Most community networks do not operate on that level.
It is of
> course present, but there are some other primary motivations why people
are doing
> it.
villages."
> Isn't this section about list of technologies? Why are those villages
mentioned?
> Optical systems can also be used elsewhere.
> 
> fiber) system Koruza (http://koruza.net/), which are useful especially in
high-density
> urban environments because of no interference.
> 
> I do not see usefulness of this categorization, because almost any network
I know of
> outgrow and changed through time inside all these categories. Community
networks
> maybe start somewhere (like urban or rural area), but then they grow and
spread
> over the whole country, then start connecting with other countries.
> 
perspective. I would
> claim that most alternative networks go beyond just incentives, but exist
because of
> various beliefs: about how networks should operate, who should have
control over
> them, the importance of commons and community stewardship of commons, etc.
> 
> As I explained, goals and motivation here seems a pretty limited list and
I think you
> should include at least ones I listed above. But probably you should do a
survey and
> ask community networks what are their goals and motivations, instead of
trying to
> guess them. (If you have done such a survey, I would love to see data.)
> 
> Community Networks are large-scale: not necessary, they can also be small,
city
> only. Some are large scale, some are small, some are focused on one
region, some
> are distributed around larger region, connected with VPN together.
> 
coordination is
> performed.  This way, community members with the right permissions have an
> obvious and direct form of organizational control over the overall
operation of the
> network (e.g.  IP addresses, routing, etc.) in their community (not just
their own
> participation in the network)."
> 
> This can be true, but it is not necessary so. There are community networks
with
> much larger focus on decentralization. Especially with
control over the
> routing of the network has anything with the existence of the shared
platform? In
> wlan slovenija network we also use a web shared platform, but that
platform does
> not control the network. It just helps in coordination. Network would
operate even
> without it, just people would have a bit harder time coordinate about use
of IP space,
> and learning how to configure their nodes.
> 
network's
> resources (IP addresses, routings, peerings, DNS entries,
> etc.) are managed.
> 
> "A Community Network is a network in which any participant in the system
may add
> link segments to the network in such a way that the new segments can
support
> multiple nodes and adopt the same overall characteristics as those of the
joined
> network, including the capacity to further extend the network.  Once these
link
> segments are joined to the network, there is no longer a meaningful
distinction
> between the previous and the new extent of the network."
> 
"autonomous
> system" and "community network" with "Internet". :-)
> 
> So what exactly is the property which differentiates community networks?
Maybe
> there is none. Maybe community networks are simply trying to (re)build the
Internet,
> but this time having infrastructure owned by participants, which are not
just
> consumers, but are participating.
> 
that people own
> the equipment, and thus the emergent network. This should be more clearly
> explained. So it is not so much about technology in community networks,
but about
> who owns and controls equipment (people/users/participants), and who
coordinates
> the network growth (people/users/participants). The line between users,
providers,
> "In Community Networks, everybody keeps the ownership of what he/she has
> contributed.
> 
backbone
> nodes). In general, mostly people do not really track ownership of
equipment,
> because they do not care about ownership if it is operating according to
common
> principles. And if it is not, it should not be in the network no matter
who owns the
> equipment.
stakeholders
> "VNOs pay the sharers and the network operators, thus creating an
incentive
> structure for all the actors: the end users get money for sharing their
network, the
> network operators are paid by the VNOs, who in turn accomplish their
socio-
> environmental role."
really do that.
> In the draft itself the https://openwireless.org/ movement is listed, but
no shares or
> money or any incentive structure is in place there for people to share
their extra
> Internet connectivity.
> "VNOs can be organized to pay the sharers and the network operators, thus
> creating an incentive structure for all the actors: the end users get
money for
> sharing their network, the network operators are paid by the VNOs, who in
turn
> accomplish their socio-environmental role. But VNOs can also operate on
gift-
> economy principles, where participants contribute to the commons by
sharing their
> resources knowing that this benefits all."
> 
design, deploy
> and manage wireless networks."
> 
> Wireless standard ensure low-cost of equipment due to economies of scale
and
> mass production. This is the main reason I think why WiFi is so popular in
alternative
> networks. You can get a device for $10. And you can get this because
everyone is
> producing this hardware, and the hardware is not just made for the
alternative
> networks. In contrast, traditional ISPs use hardware which is developed
only for
> them. Even if they are big ISP, number of units is still much smaller than
number of
> WiFi routers produced for the global market.
> 
> Question about list of WiFi standards in this draft. Why is that needed?
Why
> properties and descriptions of those standards should be in this draft?
They belong
> to Wikipedia, or their own standard. In this draft we can just reference
those
> standards. Like what of all this text is relevant to alternative networks?
It is general
> text which is true for any use:
> 
> "802.22 [IEEE.802-22.2011] is a standard developed specifically for long
range rural
> communications in TV white space frequencies and first approved in July
2011. The
> standard is similar to the 802.16
> (WiMax) [IEEE.802-16.2008] standard with an added cognitive radio ability.
The
> maximum throughput of 802.22 is 22.6 Mbps for a single 8 MHz channel using
64-
> QAM modulation. The achievable range using the default MAC scheme is 30
km,
> however 100 km is possible with special scheduling techniques. The MAC of
802.22
> is specifically customized for long distances - for example, slots in a
frame destined
> for more distant Consumer Premises Equipment (CPEs) are sent before slots
> Base stations are required to have a Global Positioning System (GPS) and a
> connection to the Internet in order to query a geolocation spectrum
database. Once
> the base station receives the allowed TV channels, it communicates a
preferred
> operating white space TV channel with the CPE devices. The standard also
includes
> a coexistence mechanism that uses beacons to make other 802.22 base
stations
> aware of the presence of a base station that is not part of the same
network."
> "A large number of Alternative Networks use the Optimized Link State
Routing
> Protocol (OLSR) as defined in [RFC3626]."
> 
> Not really. Networks use OLSR as implemented by http://olsr.org/, which is
far from
> the standardized OLSR in RFC3626. For example, in practice, ETX metric is
used,
> which is not even mentioned in RFC3626.
> 
> Also Babel should definitely be mentioned, it is used in many networks,
and it is
> even (properly) standardized as RFC6126. So if you want to include a
routing
> protocol for alternative networks with IETF standard, you should include
this one for
> sure.
> It is interesting that so many people believe that there have to be some
special
> prioritization done for sharers to be able to use APs.
will be much
> further away from the AP than the sharer. So often just this distance
already
> influences that the users of open network are prioritized less (they have
higher
> packet loss, lower bitrate, which is also good to limit the lowest allowed
bitrate).
> 
> In community networks is also pretty common to run the network itself on
different
> frequencies than the APs. Some first generation mesh networks ran
everything
> (backbone over ad-hoc) and client-serving APs on the same channel, but
with 5
> GHz spectrum and cheap dual-band devices this is often separated now.
> 
> What is this section? A non-comprehensive list of services on the Internet
and
> networks in general? This looks pretty useless section which would not
inform
> anyone reading this draft of anything about alternative networks.
> 
services
> developed just for community/alternative networks:
> 
access. For
> example, in Croatia, historically, there were wireless communities which
made
> networks in villages just to be able to play games.
> 
> "Other services (file sharing, VoIP, etc.) are not usually allowed in many
Alternative
> Networks due to bandwidth limitations."
> 
> That would go against net neutrality and anti-censorship principles which
are
> important in many other alternative networks. So the question how
informative this
> sentence is, because for some maybe this is true, for some it is not, and
some
> probably are build just around this. Others probably address this with
innovative
> solutions like internal file servers.
> 
> (https://www.diyisp.org/) be categorized according to this draft? To me is
unclear.

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:46:59 -0700

Hi!

> So at this stage we cannot include modifications substantially modifying it.

It is amazing that in whole this work until now this was the first
time that information about this process has come to the community
networks at all. And I am probably on all mailing lists there are
about community networks.

So I would really be questioning how it is possible to create such a
document without involvement of the whole segment you are trying to
describe? From my reading it seems you have consulted only with
guifi.net community network, UPC, and not much others? And even that
was without any broader survey or something?

I got some private comments explaining agreement with my comments and
surprises how community networks are depicted in your draft.

So now you have a decision to make. Are you going further with
something you know lacks clearly needed improvements, or you go on
just because you are stuck in the process. What would really be the
benefit to the broader Internet community if it contains such (I would
claim) invalid information?

Please point me to messages to wireless community mailing lists where
gaia task force send any announcement about this work, ask community
networks for input, reported to them on progress and process?
Explained deadlines and so on?

> document about this.

This would be loss for the whole Internet community. No document is
better than invalid document, no?

> The question is that if we re-open the discussion, we

Why? Isn't the rational thing to try to get to something useful? What
is the purpose of this document? To have something published? Or to
have something published which can guide and inform the Internet
community in a meaningful way? Currently, the document pretty badly
represents wireless community networks to the extent that I would even
consider it harmful to represent them in this way. Or at least rename
"community networks" in your document to something else, like
"community operated Internet providers" and let "community networks"
be defined in some other document.

Mitar

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 16:52:08 -0400

I am sorry - but the document has been floating around for 2 years now -
and just passed IRSG review process..

you just joined on the 6th April!

and stating that we consulted only Guifi is not appropriate considering
that we have been working with the GAIA group sending mails after mails
asking for feedback and using the feedback to revise the draft..

we have people from other CNs who have contributed to this draft and gave
feedback..

if you want to write a new document, please do with your thoughts. - thank
arjuna

-- 
Arjuna Sathiaseelan
Personal: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/
N4D Lab: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/n4d

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 16:03:01 -0700

Hi!

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Arjuna Sathiaseelan
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> and stating that we consulted only Guifi is not appropriate considering that
> we have been working with the GAIA group sending mails after mails asking
> for feedback and using the feedback to revise the draft..

Please, show me an e-mail where you asked for such feedback on any
mailing list with community networks?

> we have people from other CNs who have contributed to this draft and gave

Great. :-)

But yes, continue locked inside the processes knowing that you are
misrepresenting community networks.

Mitar

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 01:31:28 +0100

> and just passed IRSG review process..

Well yes the latter half of that sentence is correct, but
IRSG review is not an examination and "floating around"
(while accurate) is also perhaps not the best method for
arriving at the best content.

While I do think this draft could be published as an RFC now
with no harm accruing, my personal prediction is that all
involved will end up happier in the longer term if we do
try to discuss recent comments, which are not insubstantial
(but which are also not showstoppers). I reckon that's true
even if it's also for sure annoying for those who've been
working on this text a while.

Cheers,
S.

---

From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 02:42:23 +0200

+1

-- 
Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

PGP fingerprint    8D9F C567 BEE4 A431 56C4
                   678B 08B5 A0F2 636D 68E9

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 20:47:12 -0400

Thanks Stephen - but I am not sure what Mitar wants!

what does he mean by community networks being misinterpreted?

arjuna

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 20:49:13 -0400

you should probably go and check the gaia archives when Jose asked for
feedback..

we cant be running around other mailing lists asking for feedback...

I still dont understand whats your point about this misinterpretation?
On 12 Apr 2016 00:03, "Mitar" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> that
> >> > So at this stage we cannot include modifications substantially
> modifying
> >> > it.
> >>

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 18:12:56 -0700

Hi!

> we cant be running around other mailing lists asking for feedback...

That is an interesting field work approach. So anthropologists should
just sit in their offices waiting for people to come to them?

You are working on describing community networks, then it would be
useful to reach to community networks to be able to study them and get
their input. For example, this is a fairly recent project I remember
seeing messages around:

http://p2pvalue.eu/

I got surveys from them, even interview requests, all based on organic
dissemination of information through various means.

In the Internet era it is not so hard to ask around a bit for one
e-mail about a survey or feedback to circulate around. I got it now. I
responded. It seems it is too late. But it did happen. So with some
effort it could happen also in previously.

> I still dont understand whats your point about this misinterpretation?

I wrote a longer e-mail with all the details, where I point many
issues, smaller and larger, but the main issue I have is that
community networks are mostly presented through the economic
perspective. That they exist because of economic incentives. This is
like saying that people participate in free software projects because
software is gratis. It might be, but there is an enormous set of other
reasons as well.

Frankly, if you really wanted to do this right, you should do a survey
and ask participants in community networks for their motivations, why
they are doing that. Then you get those free form responses and read
them and create categories. It is pretty normal social sciences
approach. And then once you figure this out you write it out in a
document. We found out this and this. Alternatively, you can cite
other studies doing that instead. Do you have such studies which
analyze motivations behind people doing community networks?

What I did was just give you some new datapoints to show you that your
data is lacking. Even I do not know all the reasons people
participate. But I know from my long participation in these networks,
that your approach is too simplistic, lack major points, and
especially if it is meant as a document to help wider Internet
community get understanding of this community networks (and other
alternative networks) phenomena, then it is doing a disservice because
after reading your document people could conclude "oh, they just want
cheap Internet", which is very far of from what is really the heart of
the community.

Yes, often community networks are the only way to get to the Internet
for many people, but besides being just Internet access, they know
that it is critical for participants being equal and empowered
members. It is important that it is a community. That when a peer
comes to your door to help you mount an antenna, you not just fix the
antenna, but you become friends, you talk, drink, eat. When you will
do a similar thing with your commercial WISP serviceperson? Maybe, but
probably not.

Mitar

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 21:19:53 -0400

Mitar,
I am on the road and hence my replies are far too cryptic :) - and not
formal or detailed..

I got some offline emails from Barath Raghavan who knows you - so I have
now understood what you are trying to say..

I think Jose can probably reply in detail about these questions since he
has been working hard on this draft..

my assumption was coauthors like Bart and Leandro have done surveys before
via the confine project and this could have been reflected in the
draft..maybe they can comment..

arjuna

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 22:04:35 -0400

Hello Mitar -

So the first point I am trying to understand is when you said CNs are not
represented properly and we are biased from our understanding/working with
a CN like Guifi - how does a CN like Guifi differ from the points you are
raising:

 "free sharing of Internet connectivity, altruism
hands"

Isnt a CN like Guifi doing exactly this?

Are you saying that a specific section is not written correctly or are you
saying the whole document does not illustrate the points you have raised.
My confusion comes from this.

regards

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 22:08:22 -0400

Regarding the questionnaire -

Bart and Leandro - did some work on this before cited in the draft:
Avonts, J., Braem, B., and C. Blondia, "A Questionnaire based Examination
of Community Networks", Proceedings Wireless and Mobile Computing,
Networking and Communications (WiMob), 2013 IEEE 8th International
Conference on (pp. 8-15) , 2013.

So would you be able to give us some examples of how you forsee what we
should have asked?
Regards

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 20:06:59 -0700

Hi!

> Isnt a CN like Guifi doing exactly this?

Sorry if I was unclear. I was not saying that guifi.net does not have
those properties, they do (and this is one more argument why they
should be included) and they are simply amazing and highly
inspirational, but that from small hints here and there, like examples
used, it is noticeable that things are coming from their particular
case. Which is somewhat understandable, because they are doing amazing
stuff, but it might be one of the reasons for some bias. Because if
one thing is true about community networks is that they are as diverse
as possible. Even one network itself is often without any homogeneous
form or direction. But once you have this size of the network, it is
maybe easy to start thinking only about numbers: how many users they
have, what is the reach, how much they then pay for their Internet,
and so on. guifi.net is definitely an interesting example because of
their size they created their own economy inside the network, people
working full time on growing the network, companies moving in to use
them as backbone, and so on. All this is beautiful and it is a story
to tell, but it is only one side of a coin. If you do not look for the
other side of the coin, you might miss it. And when you look at a
network like guifi.net is it easy to get amazed by the first side of
the coin already, to not even ask "but is there something more to
those community networks".

> saying the whole document does not illustrate the points you have raised. My
> confusion comes from this.

I commented point to point. So some parts of the document seem to me
to be missing important additional information are one sided, some
parts of documents seem to me unnecessary for this particular
document, and some are really off, like the routing section one, that
one needs quite a bit of improvement (especially because it is the
easiest to validate, as it is highly technical). In most cases I was
trying to propose concrete corrections/improvements to address the
issues raised.

I think the document is a great draft. I think it is moving in the
right direction, but sadly, I do not see it finished. Too many aspects
are still missing.

Mitar

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 20:15:09 -0700

Hi!

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 7:08 PM, Arjuna Sathiaseelan
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> Avonts, J., Braem, B., and C. Blondia, "A Questionnaire based Examination of
> Community Networks", Proceedings Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking
> and Communications (WiMob), 2013 IEEE 8th International Conference on (pp.
> 8-15) , 2013.

Cool. I remember it and we participated in that survey.

> So would you be able to give us some examples of how you forsee what we

The one you are trying to answer with the document under section
"Goals and motivation". For example:

What are your goals and motivation for participating in the network?

Or:

Why are you participating in the network?

Or:

Why do you think the network exists? What makes participants
participate in the network?

The questionnaire did not include any such question but was mostly
concerned only about structural, technical, and financial properties
of community networks.

Mitar

---

From: "Steven G. Huter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 20:30:27 -0700 (PDT)

> working on this text a while.

I agree with you, Stephen.

Steven Huter, NSRC
https://nsrc.org/

---

From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:51:58 -0400

Hello Mitar - I just managed to go through your emails in full :).

Ok - I think I got the confusion - and I think I should clear it (probably
Jose can add or correct me since he is the actual driver behind this draft)
-

the draft is about alternative networks to traditional network operator
based --

so community networks was one of them - the draft was not about community
networks per se in its entirety.

So we just give an overview of the different approaches (e.g. WISPs are one
of them, CNs is another, the crowdshared approach like PAWS/Freifunk or
what you are doing in slovenia is the other) --

so this draft gives a summary of the different approaches and the tech,
economics, social, regulatory around these different approaches.

Probably I am wondering whether this is where the confusion likes since you
see us talking about economics?

The goal of the draft was discussed as I said two years ago -- so the focus
was not just on community networks.

But I agree and always welcome tech related suggestions - ofcourse they
need to be improvised - we should do that.

Regards

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2016 22:04:51 -0700

Hi!

I understand the scope. And my comments mostly relate to the community
networks aspect of this document. As you are providing overview of
community networks as part of alternative networks, I provided some
feedback on that as I am familiar with those, more than other forms of
alternative networks.

As such, I find description of community networks as found in this
document imprecise and incomplete.

It is interesting that you are counting Freifunk and wlan slovenija to
crowdshared approach? Why is that? At least for wlan slovenija I can
say that we are first a community network, but it is true that we are
probably a bit different one to guifi.net because we started from
urban areas and a position of abundance. But this is just one of those
many factors of diversity in community networks.

In any case, however you want to structure or use terminology, none of
your types of alternative networks corresponds to goals and motivation
found in networks I know. So maybe you are then not describing all
types of alternative networks. Or you have to extend existing terms
with also other types of goals and motivations.

I would propose, that first it would be useful to extend the goals and
motivations section itself. And then go through all existing types of
alternative networks mentioned in the document and try to see how they
align with those new goals and motivations.

Mitar

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 9:51 PM, Arjuna Sathiaseelan
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> of them, CNs is another, the crowdshared approach like PAWS/Freifunk or what
> you are doing in slovenia is the other) --
>
> But I agree and always welcome tech related suggestions - ofcourse they need
> to be improvised - we should do that.
>
> Regards
>

---

From: "Eggert, Lars" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 05:21:41 +0000

Hi,

> draft has already passed the Working Group Last Call, and the IRSG review.

you of course mean research group last call :-)

> So at this stage we cannot include modifications substantially modifying it.

Well, you can modify it, but it would imply re-running the last call and IRSG Review. It is a judgment call for the RG chairs whether they believe that a major revision would result in a document that is so much better that it is worth incurring the extra delay until publication.

Lars

---

From: Jon Crowcroft <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 08:11:27 +0100

I think inclusivity is by definition called for in any gaia work.

the points you made in your original long message are covered to some
extent in the current doc, but having more data points from other
countries/cultures is, in my view, extremely important

just on your very first point, for example, about altruism - all too often,
the "consensus" in a lot of tech/geek (dare i say neo-liberal) world is
that you have to have monetary incentives (e.g. market will fix things is a
mantra in the IETF) and yet the evidence from many studies is that most the
world ticks over on unpaid labour (parenting, housework, caring etc) and
things like common interest - so the more examples of this in community
networks, the more we can dispel the myth that you have to build a
for-profit system - the myth of the tragedy of the commons (oft-repeated in
ignorance of how long the common grazing lands in mongolia persisted
(literally, millenia)) is quite pervasive

on the technical and deployment side, differences matter too, since
diversity allows us to see how the design space has been (succesfully)
explored and would allow new potential deployment efforts to choose a
better fit for the given environment....

maybe for now, if you have this written up, the current draft could add a
reference?

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 6:04 AM, Mitar <[email-masked]> wrote:

> what

---

From: Mitar <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 00:39:31 -0700

Hi!

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 12:11 AM, Jon Crowcroft
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> the myth of the tragedy of the commons (oft-repeated in

I like this example as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acequia

> maybe for now, if you have this written up, the current draft could add a

I do not know what is the process here. Do you have these drafts in
some git? I could make a pull request with concrete proposed changes?
In any case, I hope that I provided concrete examples and concrete
suggestions, wording can be changed a bit, of course (I am not a
native speaker), but I hope that ideas of what is missing or what I
was trying to convey are clear enough.

Mitar

---

From: "Jose Saldana" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 10:06:04 +0200

Hi Lars, Mat and Arjuna (and all),

I have been reading all the e-mails (a lot of them BTW, which means that
this draft has raised some interest).

After a lot of work and discussion, and after the Research Group Last Call
and the IRSG Review, I thought we had converged to something useful, but it
seems the document can still be improved.

The question is that we have to find a balance between these two extremes:
"the perfect document that everyone likes and will never be finished" and
"an imperfect document that can at least be published".

This is my two-step proposal:

1) We (the authors, and myself as the editor) will build a new version (05)
of the document including the suggestions of the last week, but without
substantially modifying it. I think we can do it this week (we have already
included a number of small improvements). We may ask for feedback from the
people who have suggested some changes.

2) People read it slowly, and next week we can make this decision in the
list:
	a) We move forward with the document version 05 as it is (perhaps
with some minor improvements).
	b) Re-open the discussion and include more substantial changes,
which may require a new Last Call and IRSG Review.

Do you think this can be a good approach?

Jose

> De: gaia [mailto:[email-masked]] En nombre de Eggert, Lars
> Enviado el: martes, 12 de abril de 2016 7:22
> Para: Jose Saldana <[email-masked]>
> CC: gaia <[email-masked]>; Mitar <[email-masked]>
> Asunto: Re: [gaia] Comments on:
> > The main question now is this: this work started a long time ago (the
> > first version is from Dec 20, 2014), and after a lot of work and
> > discussion, the draft has already passed the Working Group Last Call,
and the
> IRSG review.
> Well, you can modify it, but it would imply re-running the last call and
IRSG Review.
> It is a judgment call for the RG chairs whether they believe that a major
revision
> would result in a document that is so much better that it is worth
incurring the extra
> delay until publication.

---

From: panayotis antoniadis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 11:12:04 +0200

Dear all,

I am following the evolution of this draft since the beginning and
I have started many draft long e-mails that I finally abandoned :-)

I think that the easiest way to resolve the "conflict" is to restrict
the scope of the draft than to expand it. For example, making
even more clear that the interest is on alternative networks that
offer Internet access, and mostly on the technical questions,
avoiding to go into the question of "local" services, the concept
of community, motivations, and other social and political aspects.

There is a huge literature in social sciences that tries to cover this
dimension (e.g., work by Alison Powell, Mark Gaved, Christian
Sandvig, Katrina Jungnickel, and more) and the authors could just
acknowledge that such issues go beyond the scope of the draft.
Being an engineer that has tried to explore this other "culture" of
science in the context of Community Networks I could try to help.

Btw, if you are in London next week I will be talking at UCL on why
we should make as clear as possible the two possible roles of a
community network, Internet access and local services, if we wish
them to proliferate along both directions :-)

See http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~uceeips/group-seminars.html

Best,

Panayotis Antoniadis
http://nethood.org/panayotis/

---

From: Matthew Ford <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 10:39:28 +0100

Hi Jose,

> On 12 Apr 2016, at 09:06, Jose Saldana <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

We have had a lot of good input on the list recently which is great! It’s unfortunate that it arrived when it did, but I don’t think it should be set aside because of procedural concerns.

So, yes, please work on a new rev that addresses recent input and comments as you are willing and when we have that in hand the chairs can decide how to proceed. Working with those people suggesting changes sounds like a very sensible approach.

Mat

---

From: Niels ten Oever <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2016 16:02:48 +0200

Hi all,

Great to see such a flurry of posts and discussions on the draft. Is
there any change I can follow the changes in the text in one document?

Is this document for instance edited on Github?

Cheers,

Niels

-- 
Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

---

From: "Jose Saldana" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2016 16:43:57 +0200

I'm afraid not... I am currently acting as a GitHub repository :-).

I will upload a new version soon. My first idea was to upload it tomorrow,
but I am still waiting for more answers in the list.

Nevertheless, if you think a new version would make sense, even with some
pending changes, I can upload it tomorrow. And we can upload another one
next week.

Best regards,

Jose

> De: gaia [mailto:[email-masked]] En nombre de Niels ten Oever
> Enviado el: jueves, 14 de abril de 2016 16:03
> Para: [email-masked]
> Asunto: [gaia] current version:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Great to see such a flurry of posts and discussions on the draft. Is there
any change
> I can follow the changes in the text in one document?
>