re: Happy birthday dotcom as internet domain name turns 25

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dave CROCKER <dhc2 () dcrocker net>
> Date: March 15, 2010 3:56:21 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, Ole Jacobsen <ole () cisco com>, Bob  
> Drzyzgula <bob () drzyzgula org>
> Subject: Re: [IP] re:  Happy birthday dotcom as internet domain name  
> turns 25
> Reply-To: dcrocker () bbiw net

> On 3/15/2010 7:14 AM, Dave Farber wrote:
> >    I do wonder if journalists
> > > generally have some contractual or ethical obligation
> > > to insert a minimum of one error or misrepresentation
> > > into everything they write:
> > >
> > > "Scholars generally agree that a turning point was the
> > > introduction of the Mosaic web browser by Netscape that
> > > brought mainstream consumers on to the web."
>
>
> The deeper error, in that part of the article, is the presumption  
> that .com did not initially and clearly mean for-profit COmpany.   
> From the start, it did, and .org was for non-for-profits.  Companies  
> like BBN, Digital Equipment and Xerox were on the net from its  
> start.  The fact that there were constraints on the types of use  
> that were acceptable did not preclude participation by for-profit  
> companies.  Rather, it encouraged discerning the type.
>
> Also, although not quite phrased this broadly in the article,  
> references to the Mosaic browser tend to credit it as the critical  
> capability that ensured the success of the Internet.  Mosaic was an  
> enormous advance, but so were other achievements.  The idea that  
> Mosaic changed things, fundamentally, only works only if one ignores  
> the long adoption curve and a number of milestones that preceded it.
>
> From its inception, the Arpanet/Internet followed a very steady  
> growth curve and adoption at the time of Mosaic merely continued  
> along that curve.
>
> What happened at the time of Mosaic was a change in public / 
> perception/ of the net.  Interestingly, I've heard that the  
> definition of a "mass market" is a potential customer base of 2  
> million people and it was the year of Mosaic that was estimated to  
> achieve an Internet user population of 2 million...
>
> In the late 1980s, I led an Internet software stack development  
> group, where one-third of my customers were in Europe.  Europe was  
> the hotbed of the "preferred" and competing OSI work.  Imagine the  
> irony that one of my customers was the IT department at ISO, one of  
> the two organizations that developed OSI. I asked the head of their  
> IT about this and without any hesitation said that he was tasked  
> with connecting his systems together and all that mattered was  
> getting that job done and this was the only way he could do it.
>
> His rationale made clear the likely success of the Internet's  
> technology.
>
> The Web was created in 1989 and had essentially no penetration by  
> 1990.  Rather, "gopher" was the popular publication mechanism,  
> beginning to replace Anonymous FTP.  In 1990 I was giving a class on  
> the Internet and the students directed a series of choices for the  
> gopher demonstration that led to our discovering the Wellington, New  
> Zealand Town Council Minutes of the previous week.
>
> Seeing that a random, non-technical group thought it worth  
> publishing such mundane material was the first time that I had no  
> doubt just how complete and pervasive the success of the Internet  
> would be.
>
>
> d/
> --
>
>  Dave Crocker
>  Brandenburg InternetWorking
>  bbiw.net



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