Visiting Gurb and talking to Ramon for nearly a full day has revitalized my fascination for wireless (and wired) community networks. I have written a book on wireless community networks in 2003, in German, under the title Freie Netze (Free Networks). The choice of title back then had deliberately emphasised the analogy between Free Networks and Free Software. The title had been inspired by two very different influences. On one hand there had been Volker Grassmucks early book Freie Software (freie-software.bpb.de/Grassmuck.pdf). Volkers magisterial work provided deep insight into the history and politics of Free Software and stood out for me as an example how a book on wirelesss community networks should be written. The other inspiration had been provided by a sweeping lecture in Vienna in June 2003 by Eben Moglen, lawyer of the Free Software foundation and legal brain behind the licensing model of Free Software, the General Public Licence (GPL). Moglens thunderous and captivating speech had presented the combination of Free Software, Free Hardware and Free Networks like a kind of holy trinity of the everything-free-and-open movement. Moglens conclusion was that while Free Software was already an accomplished fact, and free hardware was the hardest bit, free networks were a viable possibility, yet there was still a long way to go to attain critical mass. My book had come maybe a few years too early. When it appeared, some of the most important wireless community networks of today, such as Freifunk, Berlin, Funkfeuer, Austria, or Guif.net, were either inexistent or existed still in embryonic form only. The model of wireless community networks on which my book had been based had been created by Consume.net in the UK. Consume.net was the outcome of an improvised workshop in December 1999 in Clink Street, near Londons creative net art hub Backspace. I will describe the history of Consume in more detail below, but one key aspect of that initiative was that it was launched by non-techies. James Stevens, founder of Backspace, and Julian Priest, artist-designer-entrepreneur, provided the impetus for DIY wireless networking by sketching plans for a “model 1” of WLAN based community networking on a napkin during a tempestuous train journey in late summer 1999. Their “Model 1” - a name chosen for its association with Henry Fords first mass produced car, the Ford Model 1 or Thin Lizzy – was a techno-social network utopia.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 01:17:47 +0000
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