[ih] Re: internet-history Digest, Vol 2, Issue 4

[Joe Touch]

Lloyd Wood wrote:

...
> I'm rather worried that academics will be taking all the credit,
> simply because academics are self-documenting Dr Johnsons. Always
> scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?

Academic institutions have concepts of time that are more than 6 months 
out, and endowments (translation: retirement accounts) that support this.

Industry used to scribble too - tech reports, etc. But they disappear, 
notably when Company A is bought by Company B. Fujitsu had some nice 
docs about a neat architecture called the F8; by early 1990s it had 
disappeared except in personal copies, since the purchasing company 
didn't consider a library a "financial asset".

History, for better or worse, belongs to those who write the books. As 
Ted implied, if we care about it, we need to write things down more. 
Don't blame academics, who participated heavily in the development of 
the Internet anyway, for having the time for something industry doesn't 
see as having a 5-minute payback.

Joe
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 254 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/attachments/20040927/314902fb/attachment.asc>