We received three responses to our questionnaire of Student Government candidates: from independent Journalism candidate Stephanie Ruby, Progress VP candidate Adam Roberts, and Impact presidential candidate Dennis Ngin.

It’s quite unfortunate that no other candidates choose to respond. Hopefully, we’ll have a better turnout next semester.

Responses follow…

Dennis Ngin
Impact Party candidate for Student Body President

Dennis stopped by our meeting tonight to talk with us personally. I don’t want to misrepresent him, so I won’t try to recite what he said. In brief, though, he had a chance to address some, though not all, of our questions. Additionally, he asked our opinion on a possible site licensing deal with Microsoft, which Jordan had brought up at our last meeting.

It’s worth nothing that Robert Mack, VP candidate for Impact, paid a visit to our first meeting.

Adam Roberts
Progress Party candidate for Student Body Vice-President

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for your questions regarding free culture issues. An organization such as yours, one of the first of its’ kind at UF, plays a very important role in pushing the envelope for technological issues and how society interacts with them.

I am running with The Progress Party to be UF’s next Student Body Vice-President. My contact information appears at the end of this message. “Open access” is a recurring theme in your messages and, of course, in FFC’s underlying mission. This is something that The Progress Party has made a major priority in how we want to run Student Government under our administration. Easy, open access to SG documents (of which there are many) is one of our core values as well as the first item on our party platform. We feel that in order to run a respected, efficient Student Government, it must be transparent. I would hope to accomplish this by dramatically improving the SG web site and ensuring all documents (bills, resolutions, executive orders and reports, committee reports/minutes, etc.) are posted on the web site in a user-friendly, timely manner.

With regard to your first three questions, I would strongly be in favor of each of them. In a research-heavy, multi-platform environment such as that we have at UF, data, people, and their documents need to be able to freely flow across different computer systems and platforms. Specifically, though, it is important that open source formats and programs exist as an option, but not as the only option. User-friendliness, and the ability to use standard formats and programs, such as Microsoft Word, is far more important for everyday users than their tech-saavy counterparts.

ICARUS has been a topic of much debate ever since it was created and implemented. Purely as a network management tool, it has worked well. From a technical aspect, the program does it’s job and has certainly contributed to an increasingly positive image of UF outside of the university. The problems lie with the administration of the system, DHNet in general, and the policies by which each operates. DHNet continues to be plagued by a poor customer service department that is often slow to respond to problems, especially at the beginnings of semesters. Much of this problem could be solved by proactively hiring temporary staff to work DHNet’s Helpdesk during these peak periods. Increased coordination between the DHNet and CIRCA help desks would also prove beneficial with respect to this problem.

Unfortunately, ICARUS has also done a lot to hurt the “experimental technology” world. The recent BitTorrent debate rages on, as it did with the original P2P services. While the technology offers a lot of possibilities in the computer world, it has in fact been used for more harm than good, and ICARUS administrators have responded by banning it - in an effort to reduce their administrative overhead of responding to RIAA subpoenas.

Posting course materials online is an ambitious but important goal. While SG has no direct power to “require” this of any or all faculty, we do have the ability to conduct research, pass Senate resolutions, and lobby administration to encourage instructors to post material online. While this certainly increases access to information, and it generally works well, you must consider the flip-side of the issue. If a Professor were required to post material online, it is therefore entirely possible that that Professor may decide to abandon paper documents altogether, including paper handouts to be used in class, which he/she may announce as being available exclusively on the web site. If documents are made available only online, we would want to be sure that wouldn’t interfere with the instructional process, either.

The Progress Party has called for implementation of a legal music downloading program, such as Napster. According to survey results compiled by the Inter-Residence Hall Association and the Department of Housing, 65% of on-campus residents and 45% of off-campus residents were willing to pay approximately $10 per year in additional fees to cover the cost of such a music program. An even higher number indicated a strong desire for SG to provide some way of downloading music legally by means of a commercial service.

We would be in support of an effort to digitize books in the public domain. Efforts such as these increase access to those resources and make them available 24 hours / 7 days per week.

Again, I thank you for your questions, each of which are certainly innovative and among the most unique questions we’ve gotten. While I understand that you and your organization are not backing a particular party, please do encourage your members to VOTE. On this campus where turnout remains very low, SG officials are only held accountable to those that vote them into office. If you want SG officials to work for you, you must vote. A complete list of polling locations is available on our web site at www.ProgressUF.com and we also link to the other parties’ sites so that you can make an informed decision this week. Voting occurs from 8 AM - 8 PM on Tuesday and Wednesday. Remember to vote this week and if you agree with our positions on the above issues, remember to vote for Progress.

Stephanie Ruby
Independent candidate for the College of Journalism

• Open access to the results of government-funded scientific research? YES
• The use of free / open source software on university computers? I am not familiar with these programs.
• The use of open file formats for university documents? I think that using common programs like Microsoft Office is acceptable but any concerns with these programs can and should be addressed to professors.
• The ICARUS network monitoring system? While I understand the reasons for the program,I feel it does infringe upon the rights of students and these concerns should be addressed.
• Requiring professors to post course materials online? Absolutely.
• Requiring all students to pay for a music downloading program? No.
• Digitizing books from university libraries which are in the public domain? Necessary especially due to the fact that we don’t have a library!

Thank you so much for asking some substantive questions.