[Mesh] Peering agreement

[Marc Juul]

On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 10:30 PM, Mitar <mitar at tnode.com> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> So I posted that ticket on our wlan slovenija Trac some time ago, but I
> am also writing now here because maybe there are some people who would
> be also interested in more lawish approach to open networks.
>
> So the idea I have is that what we are doing now with community wireless
> networks, how we grow them and connect them is all very similar to how
> Internet was build in the beginning. Mostly it all works because of the
> trust and because we share similar values.
>


Interesting idea about the license-type agreement. I think the free network
foundation is working on something similar. We should sync with them.

-- 
Marc



> But as we will grow, we will face issues. For example, can our networks
> be used for commercial uses. Can we filter some traffic we object to?
> Will you transit traffic over your network from some other network with
> which rules you do not agree on? In general, we will face net neutrality
> issues. And instead of waiting that we get to the stage when things will
> be hard to change, I was thinking that we should learn from Internet and
> make one change: organic growing and interconnecting of networks is
> great, but let us all have a common base of things we agree on, and let
> us have a legal backing of that. Internet has no law regulating it, but
> we should use law to regulate our networks so that we assure that they
> are open and neutral forever. It is like using copyright to defend the
> commons. :-)
>
> (Of course we should also try to make it technologically ensured to be
> so, but why not have one line of defense more? And sometimes it is good
> to write things down, just so that everybody involved knows what to
> expect.)
>
> We could have something similar to GPL which in short would require from
> you net neutrality, if you are connecting to the network, and that
> others who will connect to you, will adhere to the same agreement
> (peerleft? :-) ).
>
> I am not a lawyer, so I am not sure if "licensing" can be used in this
> way. What is a difference between license and agreement? Can you give a
> license to somebody that he or she is allowed to connect to your network
> and spread it further under this and this conditions. And if they break
> those conditions, they are lost their right to connect and are thus
> illegal.
>
> Concrete proposal is here:
>
> http://grow.wlan-si.net/ticket/1258
>
> When drafting this idea I read many other such agreements/licenses
> listed here:
>
> http://interop.wlan-si.net/wiki/Legal/Licenses
>
> Is there any lawyer around who would be interested in drafting such a
> peerleft (beerleft?) license? Do you know about some other similar
> licenses I missed?
>
> So, this is something which is probably for you very down along the
> road, initially this is probably overkill, but maybe some are interested
> also in this aspects.
>
> (For all who are maybe not familiar with peering agreements. So the idea
> is that you make some type of agreement between nodes connecting, or
> even networks as whole connect, about how you will transit their traffic
> over your node or network. Inside one community wireless networks this
> is often not a problem, but maybe you will get a person who will want to
> filter all porn going over his or her node because it will be morally
> objecting. How to deal with this? One way is to ignore it. Another is to
> have some organization with ruling power over all nodes. The other is to
> try to technically assure that this is impossible to do (which might not
> be viable or even moral). And there is the thing which I am proposing
> which is that all nodes are seen as individual entities which adhere to
> the same license. Whoever is deploying this nodes. You don't care. If
> they adhere to the license. And if they don't, you have a right to cut
> them off.)
>
>
> Mitar
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