"San Francisco - Hours before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to take action against Comcast for violating the FCC's net neutrality principles, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is releasing "Switzerland," a software tool for customers to test the integrity of their Internet communications..." -- (Switzerland is free software licensed under the GPL)

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, plans to propose a new so-called net neutrality rule Monday that could prevent telecommunications, cable and wireless companies from blocking Internet applications, according to sources at the agency.

In previous tutorials we've learned SUSE has made life very easy for System Administrators having developed graphical tools to manage many system components including the iSCSI target. As with most things in life there is a price to pay for this ease: YaST only writes to the configuration files and the changes do not come into force until the service is restarted.

Net neutrality effects all software users. The giant telcos want to censor the internet at will, then charge an arm and a leg for sub-standard service; just like M$ does.

"The Network Neutrality Squad (NNSquad) is an open-membership, open-source effort, enlisting the Internet's users to help keep the Internet's operations fair and unhindered from unreasonable restrictions. [...] We invite individual, commercial, nonprofit, government, and all other Internet users and stakeholders (including ISPs) to participate in the Network Neutrality Squad..."

"...Recently, Net Neutrality-support association French Data Network (FDN), the first historical French ISP, underwent a sudden contract rupture from SFR, its ADSL provider. This is serious threat to Net Neutrality because this shows that big companies can have the power 1) to avoid competition 2) to control which company can or cannot provide Internet access.

"The fight for net neutrality is intensifying with the recent confirmation that Comcast and other internet providers are restricting BitTorrent traffic. ‘Net neutrality’ is the basic principal that all traffic on the internet should be transmitted equally. Unfortunately, corporations like Comcast believe that they should be able to slow down or block certain types of traffic while accelerating other types (including their own)..."

"Net Neutrality refers to free access to the Internet without discrimination based upon how often a user accesses the Internet or how much broadband capacity they utilize. Advocates for Net Neutrality believe that users are entitled to unlimited access in order to preserve current freedoms as well as to prevent broadband providers from abusing their power to block applications they do not favor or to discriminate between content providers..." Via EFF => http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/01/university-san-francisco-law-studen...

« "Net neutrality". This obscure yet simple concept is the root of the development of the Internet as we know it. In the digital environment, it is the guarantee of competition, innovation, and fundamental freedoms. Until now, net neutrality has been the rule, both for technical and economical reasons.