Re: more on the birth of the internet

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Daniel Dern <dern () pair com>
Date: August 20, 2008 12:23:04 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on the birth of the internet


> From: Yale N Patt <patt () ece utexas edu>
> Subject: more on the birth of the internet

> ...With all the "fathers" I regularly hear bandied about, I am always
> disappointed that I never hear the name Licklider mentioned. I believe
> he had the original vision.  Or, Larry Roberts who had probably
> the largest part in making it happen, or Bob Taylor, whose job was
> to manage the store that was responsible for making it happen.  Or,
> Glen Culler, the PhD mathematician who was one of the best engineers
> I have ever known, and the guy who I think made the biggest difference
> with respect to actually implementing it.  Lenny Kleinrock's PhD  
> thesis
> and measurement work was also relevant as was the work of D.W. Davies,
> whose name I finally saw posted to IP for the first time recently.
> I remember a meeting in Davies office in Teddington on the topic in
> August, 1968.  And, while I am at it, Al Gore was extremely useful
> at a time when government funding for this "vision" did not seem quite
> so attractive to many.

I don't think this is completely fair -- while I confess I don't
recognize Culler's name, Roberts, Taylor and Kleinrock are regularly
mentioned in many histories that go beyond the way-short list,
and include the efforts at ARPA/DARPA... and as the underlying-work
history is added, ditto Licklider.  A lot depends on what you
mean by "Internet" and "history."  I'm sure that the same
"who's (not) here" could be applied to the history of getting
to the moon, or the Mars mission.  The Internet roll call of
honor includes large numbers of grad students and sysadmins,
project managers, program managers, et c... and the success
also comes from the ongoing efforts of sysadmins, list managers,
security experts, spamfighters, and even (some) investors.

Daniel Dern
Author, THE INTERNET GUIDE FOR NEW USERS (1993)
Editor, Internet World magazine, 1993-1994 (in
 paper, cf two boxes' worth in my basement, and
 an early Gopher site, thanks to Rob Raisch)
et c.

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