[ih] Query: When did the IETF change to "everyone can come"?

[Scott W Brim]

On 12/04/2006 11:22 AM, Craig Partridge wrote:
> The 5th IETF was, I believe, open to anyone.  I showed up under NSF
> funding because NSFNET had network management challenges that we needed
> addressed and IETF was deemed the place in the Internet standards world
> in which that work should be done.
> 
> I seem to recall this was the first IETF that was open to anyone but I've
> never gotten the full story on IETFS 1 through 4, though I note they
> have proceedings on-line at IETF.org.

As I recall, the first 3 were essentially DoD plus contractors, and at
the 4th we had more people by invitation -- CSNET, NASA, Proteon, and
me for NSFNET (Dave Mills and Hans-Werner Braun were NSFNET but they
were also at previous meetings on DoD money).

The 6th meeting had all the NSFNET regional networks.  I don't think
they required invitations.  I believe the 9th at Mitre was where Van
Jacobson showed up, and as I recall his consituency was not the
regional network but LBL -- that's significant.  I don't remember if
he required a specific invitation or not.  The 9th was also where
Phill Gross explicitly said the IETF's constituency was "the whole
Internet community".

If Phill sees this I hope he'll respond.

On 12/04/2006 11:36 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > It continued as "people who work on ARPAnet/Internet connected
>     > networks"
> 
> Well, US Federal Government funded (along with a few foreign partners, but I
> think some of them were actually DARPA-funded - I think UCL was, IIRC). There
> was this thing called the FRICC, which stood for "Federal Research Internet
> Coordinating Committee", which was really the Internet governing body after
> it left off being a DARPA research thing.

The FRICC was for US Govt inter-agency coordination but when was
PSINet formed?  I think that was a significant point because it was
the first for-profit ISP.  It would be interesting to go through the
IETF participants lists and see where Marty Schoffstall's affiliation
changed.

> Of course, even before that formal decision there was also a certain amount of
> sub-rosa Internet spread, too. That's because unlike an ARPANet connection,
> which necessarily involved getting the Feds in the loop because one had to
> connect directly to it, one could hook onto the Internet via some
> friendly/brave site which let you go through them, provided you could come up
> with a plausible link to government-support activity to cover the posteriors
> of your co-conspirators.  E.g. Proteon's initial Internet connectivity was via
> MIT, which justified it on the ground that they were using it to support
> government contractors.

and lots of for-profit companies connected to the regionals because
they were doing business with universities on NSFNET.


> And, in a similar fashion, one could slide into the IETF meetings to, if one
> knew people and could make it sound plausible; e.g. I seem to recall getting
> people from Proteon (as opposed to me going as a long-standing member, and
> being a link to Proteon) to IETF's pretty early on.

Yes, I think you invited someone from Proteon to the 4th meeting.

swb