Re: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC comments on proposed Bylaws modifications)

[Marc Schneiders <marc@fuchsia.bijt.net>]

On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, at 15:06 [=GMT-0500], John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D. wrote:

> > Personally I think that all such texts, whether we call them
> > recommendations or standards, should be freely available on the internet.
> > If only because making them more accessible, makes them more effective.
>
> That's great, but then how do you pay the electric bill at the end of the
> month?

As Richard Hill pointed out, the ITU does a lot for free. It could also
charge for other things than texts, do with less staff, save on flight
tickets, hotels, coffee, new furniture. And I doubt that the income from
downloaded texts is very high. And the fact that they have to pay their
bills, is a very poor excuse. I am surprised to hear it from you. It
certainly does not justify charging for texts _in particular_.

In fact, charging for texts not to recover costs for printing, as was the
case in the past, but to make some money to pay the bills, shows how
easily organizations like the ITU turn into a tax levying body. The ITU is
not the only (quasi) government body that does this. I see it around me.
Here, in Holland (and elsewhere I would guess), in the past some civil
servant had to type on a typing machine and check whether everything was
copied accurately when one needed a birth certificate. Now they just press
a button and pick it up from the printer, and probably go through all the
trouble of putting a stamp on it. The charge has not gone down.

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