[ih] FYI - Gordon Crovitz/WSJ on "Who Really Invented the Internet?"

[Guy Almes]

Andy,
   Malis makes several interesting points.
   As is usual (and appropriate) for this list, most of the comments 
today have focused on the technical innovations (e.g., of PUP) of 
various players, very much including Xerox.
   But one point Malis makes >>But Crovitz confuses AN internet with THE 
Internet.<< is actually important.
   If, somehow, the internet ideas had been limited to Xerox PARC, the 
corporate style of Xerox would have doomed them.
   But the organic relationship between (even the early) Internet with 
an increasingly growing part of the university/ lab/ academic world made 
a big difference, and here is one place where government-funded research 
can pay big dividends compared with private corporate research/ development.
   Just consider, for example, the student impact, beginning, curiously, 
with the cadre of Stanford and other grad students doing their summer 
gigs at PARC in the late 70s, but also the real Internet shock troops 
who were exposed to the Internet during the NSFnet era and then (!) 
graduated and entered both the workplace and the consumer world during 
the late 1980s and early 1990s.

   	-- Guy

On 7/23/12 2:02 PM, Andrew G. Malis wrote:
> The LA Times fires back at Crovitz and the WSJ. This was written by
> Michael Hiltzik, who was quoted by Crovitz:
>
> http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-mo-who-invented-internet-20120723,0,5052169.story
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 2:25 PM, John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org
> <mailto:jcurran at istaff.org>> wrote:
>
>     Internet History Folks -
>         I make note of this, as some of the folks on this list might have
>         differing views.
>
>     FYI,
>     /John
>
>     ===
>     <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518.html#>
>
>
>       Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?
>
>
>         Contrary to legend, it wasn't the federal government, and the
>         Internet had nothing to do with maintaining communications
>         during a war.
>
>       *
>
>
>               By L. GORDON CROVITZ
>
>     Columnist's name
>
>   *
>
>     A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack
>     Obama said: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that.
>     Somebody else made that happen." He justified elevating bureaucrats
>     over entrepreneurs by referring to bridges and roads, adding: "The
>     Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created
>     the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet."
>
>     ...
>
>
>