[ih] Some Questions over IPv4 Ownership

[Craig Partridge]

By the way...

Wearing my hat as an editorial for the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing,
it is clear from these notes that there's the potential for a good paper on
the technical evolution of Internet addressing here (Noel's progression of
formats, then subnets and supernets, then CIDR...) if someone feels up to
taking on the effort.

Thanks!

Craig

>     > From: Craig Partridge <craig at aland.bbn.com>
> 
>     > I always viewed CIDR as a logical extension of subnets (the ability to
>     > own a A, B or C address and break it up into smaller networks within
>     > your organization).
> 
> Also (and even more so) Roki's then-well-known work on supernetting, which
> everyone keeps forgetting (hint, hint :-)... See this message:
> 
>   http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg24111.html
> 
> and following.
> 
>     > And it is clear who invented subnets -- that was Jeff Mogul (that's my
>     > memory and RFC 917 [published 1984] supports that recollection).
> 
> Ahem. IP subnets had been in use at MIT for many years - see, for instance,
> IEN 82, February 1979, "LCS Net Address Format". Jeff was an undergrad at MIT
> ,
> and 'merely' (an invaluable service, to be sure) documented basically what we
> were already doing, as one entry in the 'subnet sweepstakes' (see also RFC's
> 925, 932, etc), once it became clear that other sites were going to run into
> the same situation that MIT had been in for many years (too many LANs at the
> site, the 'main' routing tables could not - and needed not - have an entry fo
> r
> each one).
> 
> I should give a further 'shout out' to David Moon, who is the origin of the
> 'subnet mask' part of subnetting (he mentioned the idea in email to me, and I
> promptly glommed onto it, and passed it on to Jeff).
> 
>     > In the context of Noel's note, Jeff was at Stanford at the time (I
>     > can't recall in what capacity).
> 
> Grad student.
> 
> 	Noel
********************
Craig Partridge
Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies
E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com
Phone: +1 517 324 3425