A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL FREENET PROJECT (as of February 1993) The National Capital Freenet project was started in November 1991 when George Frajkor and Jay Weston of the Carleton University School of Journalism approached Dave Sutherland, Director of Carleton's Computing and Communications Services with information about the Cleveland FreeNet. The founding National Capital Freenet Organizing Committee was comprised of: Dave Sutherland, June Hacker, Tambrae Knapp, George Frajkor, Jay Weston, Warren Thorngate, Ross Mutton, Robin Allardyce of Carleton University and Richard Mount of Mount, Yemensky, Daigle, Barristers and Solicitors. The committee met almost weekly throughout the remainder of 1991 and the first half of 1992, planning the project. The first public meeting in March of 1992 at Carleton University brought another 100 people from 50 organizations into the project. Software was acquired from Case Western Reserve University and installed on a system at Carleton at the end of April. Monthly meetings of the extended organizing committee were held throughout 1992. Gandalf Technologies donated modems and the communications equipment for connecting the Ottawa Public Library in September. In October the FreeNet was moved to a SparcStation 10 provided by Sun Microsystems in cooperation with Industry Science and Technology Canada. A formal public opening of the system was held on February 1, 1993 at the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton headquarters. Invited speakers included Tom Hockin, Minister for Science; Dr. Tom Grundner, President of the National Public Telecomputing Network and founder of the Cleveland Free-Net; Peter Clark, Regional Chair and Dr. Robin Farquhar, President of Carleton University.