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

[Andrew Russell]

Lloyd (and all) -

Given this discussion, you might enjoy a chapter by Amy Slaton and 
Janet Abbate called "The Hidden Lives of Standards: Technical 
Prescriptions and the Transformation of Work in America," in the book 
"Technologies of Power: Essays in Honor of Thomas Parke Hughes and 
Agatha Chipley Hughes" (eds. Michael Thad Allen and Gabrielle Hecht, 
The MIT Press, 2001).  The authors argue, "To see the full range of 
labor implications of standards, it is necessary to look at the actual 
processes involved in putting standards to use.  By uncovering the 
labor required of the people who implement, test, and deploy 
standardized products, this study demonstrates how standards can, in 
some instances, become a means of intensifying white-collar labor and 
an opportunity for self-made experts to assert authority."  (I can't 
find this article online, but you might find that it's worth a trip to 
the library). They look at the 1983 TCP transition and the growth of 
Interop (among other things) to illustrate their arguments.

The general point is that specification of standards is a vitally 
important part of the story, but it's only the beginning.  
Implementation (by people who, unfortunately, as Joe points out, aren't 
as fastidious in keeping and maintaining records) is another important 
part.  Well-trained historians (like Slaton and Abbate) know to look 
for additional evidence (archived or otherwise) that might show who 
else was involved beyond what is recorded in RFCs, etc.  Internet 
history isn't simply "who invented what."  For example, Urs von Burg's 
book "The Triumph of Ethernet" (Stanford UP, 2001) shows that the 
history of Ethernet doesn't stop with a biography of Robert Metcalfe.

Another good study that argues this general point is Greg Downey's book 
"Telegraph Messenger Boys" (Routledge, 2002). He also wrote an 
excellent article (particularly relevant to this topic) called "Virtual 
Webs, Physical Technologies, and Hidden Workers: The Spaces of Labor in 
Information Networks" in the journal "Technology and Culture" (Vol 42 
No 2 April 2001, pp 209-236 - at 
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/technology_and_culture/toc/tech42.2.html, 
but alas you'll need an individual or institutional subscription).

As for the general concern (expressed by Joe, Bob, and others) about 
disappearing archival sources on the industry side, David Kirsch at the 
University of Maryland is working hard to try to preserve records and 
memories of failed dot-com firms. See http://businessplanarchive.org 
and http://www.dotcomarchive.org. If archives tend to disappear when 
Company A is bought by Company B, they *definitely* disappear when 
Company A's assets become the property of bankruptcy trustees.

Andy Russell
History of Science and Technology
Johns Hopkins University



On Sep 27, 2004, at 1:25 PM, Lloyd Wood wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, Joe Touch 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,
>
> ...as their written records attest...
>
>
>  for having the time for something industry doesn't
>> see as having a 5-minute payback.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>
> <http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/><L.Wood at eim.surrey.ac.uk>
>