Interesting People mailing list archives
How the Internet got its rules
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 08:30:10 -0400
For the record I have known Steve for maybe 30 plus years. djf andCERT Technical Symposium on 11 March Reinventing the Internet – Can We and How Would We? Panelists: David Farber, moderator, Carnegie Mellon University Lawrence Roberts, Anagram, Inc. Steve Crocker, Shinkuro, Inc. Paul Mockapetris, Nominum, Inc. Guru Parulkar, Clean Slate Internet Design Program
mms://wms.andrew.cmu.edu/001/CERT1_Session3.wmv Begin forwarded message: From: "David S. Isenberg (isen)" <isen () isen com> Date: April 7, 2009 7:40:11 AM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: How the Internet got its rules Dave, I'm sure you know Steve Crocker, who wrote RFC #1 at the dawn of the Internet, long before the letters IETF stood for anything. Now the NY Times has published Steve's Op-Ed commemorating the 40th Anniversary of RFC #1. This history, the story of how RFC #1 (and the RFC system, the IETF and the Internet) came to be, is history that those of us who care about preserving the Internet's most vital properties should know. Here are several key paragraphs:
The early R.F.C.’s ranged from grand visions to mundane details, although the latter quickly became the most common. Less important than the content of those first documents was that they were available free of charge and anyone could write one. Instead of authority-based decision-making, we relied on a process we called “rough consensus and running code.” Everyone was welcome to propose ideas, and if enough people liked it and used it, the design became a standard. After all, everyone understood there was a practical value in choosing to do the same task in the same way. For example, if we wanted to move a file from one machine to another, and if you were to design the process one way, and I was to design it another, then anyone who wanted to talk to both of us would have to employ two distinct ways of doing the same thing. So there was plenty of natural pressure to avoid such hassles. It probably helped that in those days we avoided patents and other restrictions; without any financial incentive to control the protocols, it was much easier to reach agreement. This was the ultimate in openness in technical design and that culture of open processes was essential in enabling the Internet to grow and evolve as spectacularly as it has. In fact, we probably wouldn’t have the Web without it.
Steve's complete Op-Ed is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html?ref=opinion and here: http://bit.ly/UBIWf David I ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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