[Noisebridge-discuss] MonkeyBrains donates a new uplink to Noisebridge

Ani Niow v at oneletterwonder.com
Wed Nov 25 22:24:21 UTC 2009


I'm sorry all, I can't really support this for some ethical and political
reasons.

I've been privy to some communication between the ops team and others that
paint this effort into a very negative light. Not gong to name names but
there is a whole rash of unexcellent behaviour that I simply cannot stay
quiet about. I was asked not to distribute some information widely and
especially not to name names and I will honour both requests.

According to some people that are more in the know about the backstory about
Monkeybrains and their fibre connection, the fact that they even *have*
fibre from the city could very well be a breach of contract and the fact
that they're selling it to other organisations could place them in serious
jeopardy if a large company like Comcast or AT&T decides to sue. The current
contract with the city states that only government organisations are
supposed to have access to this fibre and while there are non government
organisations that have access to this connection, only Monkeybrains is
being highly public about it and even selling it to other organisations who
are also not supposed to have it. There is pending legislation that will
make fibre more accessible to all in SF however Monkeybrains has decided to
ignore all this because they have OMGFIBRE. Monkeybrains is aware of all
this and even have a backup plan in case their access to fibre could get
revoked which even a member of the ops team that is helping install this
connection admits that it is sketchy: "they have a fallback plan if the
freebie fiber becomes unavailable (albeit their fallback sounds somewhat
sketch, but we can burn that bridge when we get to it)"

A shady contract and a fallback plan that sounds kind of sketchy? Certainly
sounds like this contract is on solid ground to me.

Some members here have been pulling strings and asking favours so that we
can get a fibre connection of our own from the city, *legitimately*. There
were even antennae on the roof and other high speed equipment installed for
this very purpose. When Monkeybrains announced their connection plans, the
pants of several other members got so wet that the only way to dry them out
was to basically steamroll the efforts of other members that has been
putting forth the effort to get us a legitimate link from the city itself,
ignoring their concerns about breaches of contract, possible legal action
and the jeopardisation of future fibre efforts. The members behind the legit
effort were highly surprised and upset when the announcement was made that
we *are* getting a connection from Monkeybrains even after concerns were
noted about why this is a Bad Idea and were not communicated with *at all*.
Not to mention that none of them were communicated that the equipment that
was installed in order to get a legit link was going to be used in the
Monkeybrains install.

The gist of all this is, Monkeybrains is jeopardising the efforts to get
legitimate fibre not only to us, but everyone they are selling a connection
to that they're not actually supposed to have (or are supposed to depending
on coming legislation), some members of the ops team have been aware of this
and have been extremely non-communitative and dismissive of this entire
situation in order to get OMGFAST INTERNETRIGHTNOW. The individuals behind
getting us a legitimate link from the city have stated their concerns about
this entire situation and have asked time and time again for patience as the
political stuff works out so we all can take advantage of this connection.
Impatience between other people seems to have prevailed even with those
concerns and those people have basically negated the efforts to get us a
legitimate link from the city anytime soon with the news that we're
willingly participating in a program we know that may be a breach of
governmental contract and could go away at any time.

I've been watching this for a few days and I simply could not keep quiet
about it any longer. I'm very upset with the way things have been handled
and have lost some respect for some members that are behind this. Behaviour
is most unexcellent. This affects all of Noisebridge as it deals with
something that we all will deal with since the plan is to give the rest of
Noisebridge access after the test mule works out and I am not happy with the
lack of communication to the rest of us Noisebridgers about the concerns
behind this effort and object to its even existence.


Happy Thanksgiving!


-Ani
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20091125/d08b77a6/attachment-0003.html>


More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list