[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: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:25:12 +0100 (BST)
From: Lloyd Wood <l.wood at eim.surrey.ac.uk>
Organization: speaking for none
To: Joe Touch <touch at ISI.EDU>
CC: internet-history at postel.org, Bob Braden <braden at ISI.EDU>
References: <200409232027.NAA21032 at gra.isi.edu> 
<Pine.GSO.4.50.0409232341120.5429-100000 at argos.ee.surrey.ac.uk> 
<41583BC9.8030502 at isi.edu>

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>

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