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

[Joe Touch]

Forwarded for the archive.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [ih] Re: internet-history Digest, Vol 2, Issue 4
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 01:56:28 +0100 (BST)
From: Lloyd Wood <l.wood at eim.surrey.ac.uk>
Organization: speaking for none
To: Bob Braden <braden at ISI.EDU>
CC: internet-history at postel.org
References: <200409232027.NAA21032 at gra.isi.edu>

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004, Bob Braden wrote:

> I would like to make a comment about this discussion of ARPAnet history.
> We pioneers who were there at the time have at best hazy memories of
> what happened when.  The only reliable record from those days is
> the RFC series.  If it was written down, it is still preserved.
> What was not written down was largely lost.

...which is rather convenient for those involved, in being able to
claim that what was written down was the result of Really Careful
Thought and Much Discussion of Alternatives, alas and most oddly not
visible anywhere.

> Twenty years from now, Internet historians will be asking about
> what happened to the Internet in the 1990s and early 21st century.
> (Where) is it being written down?

in mailing list archives, which the ietf should finally be getting its
act together about hosting (and hopefully archiving) rather too late.
Oh, it hasn't?, because history is still neglected? Ah, well.

the end2end archives go back quite some way.

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?

L.

<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/><L.Wood at eim.surrey.ac.uk>

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