Brewster Kahle nailed a Community LAN manifesto a couple years ago with his SF LAN Manifesto:
The Wireless Commons Manifesto, created by a group of Community LAN activitists, elaborates on the concept.
“We have formed the Wireless Commons because a global wireless network is within our grasp. We will work to define and achieve a wireless commons built using open spectrum, and able to connect people everywhere. We believe there is value to an independent and global network which is open to the public. We will break down commercial, technical, social and political barriers to the commons.”
Signatories of the manifesto say the features of a community network should include:
Non-Discriminatory Routing
Nodes in the network must pass all traffic regardless of origin, destination or content. It will be important to allow node owners to deal with abusive activity but whenever possible routing agreements should be as open as possible.
Organic Growth
In general all that should be required to join is to find someone that is already connected and make arrangements directly with them. This is very similar to the way the Internet originally grew.
Mesh Networking
Mesh networking has to potential to allow new nodes to be automatically be detected and integrated into the network, allow broken nodes to be automatically culled as well as routes through the network to be optimized on the fly.
Distributed Ownership
By making sure that ownership of the network is distributed across the community as a whole we can make it as difficult as possible for the network to be commandeered.
Best Effort
Adopting the principle of “best effort”, one of the principles that the Internet was built upon, means that the network is less encumbered and can grow more freely.
End-to-End Connectivity
Any two hosts on the network should be able to directly contact each other without the help of a third party. This allows any device which is capable of joining the network to be capable of also acting as a server.
Fully Routable Addresses
Not only should wireless clients be able to get to the Internet, but the Internet should be able to get to the wireless clients. This opens up the new possibilities of being able to offer services world wide from a device hosted on a community network.
Fault Isolation
It is inevitable that an open network will eventually experience abuse. The network should be architected in a way that limits the amount of damage that a single attack can cause.
Anonymous Access
Anonymous speech is one of the requirements of a free society. An open wireless network provides a perfect platform for us support this.
Building Use and Generating Content
The more people that use the network, the more people that have a vested interest in our continued existence. The generation of content which lives on the wireless network may be the key to building usage.
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