[ih] XEROX/PUP and Commercialization (was Re: FYI - Gordon Crovitz/WSJ on "Who Really Invented the Internet?")

[Vint Cerf]

the term "Internet" appeared in the title of RFC 675 and I believe
this was likely the first time it was used in any formal sense.

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 5:40 PM, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:
> Hi Vint et al,
>
> I mispoke if I implied that "no one can define the Internet".  As
> DaveC pointed out, it's more that we haven't come to a consensus on
> the definition, even within this small community of techies and
> historians.  It's so easy to define The Internet that everyone has
> their own definition.  To some people, it's the Web.  The under-30
> crowd often equates it to Facebook, Twitter, and friends.  To others,
> it's everybody accessible by email - many of whom you can't reach by a
> TCP connection.  With 2+ billion people reported to now be "on The
> Internet", I suspect there's quite a few definitions out there.
>
> I share Vint's view that the Arpanet was not the beginning of the
> Internet.  I view The Internet as more of a parasitical beast that
> attached itself to the Arpanet, was nurtured by it in its childhood,
> and ultimately killed it, just as it did with a bunch of other
> networks and technologies.  Other people see it differently.
>
> It might be possible at least to trace the lineage of the phrase "The
> Internet".   I wonder if that phrase was ever trademarked or whatever
> you do to legally protect such things.  I vaguely recall that ARPA was
> at some point thinking about that kind of issue, around the time that
> TCP was becoming an official DoD Standard.
>
> There was a meeting, sometime in the late 70s or so, where I
> personally think the phrase "The Internet" was first adopted as the
> name for the thing we know today.  I recall being at one of the
> periodic meetings, probably a TCP Working Group or ICCB meeting -
> fewer than 20 people.   Vint had a non-technical agenda item - picking
> a name to identify the set of projects that were collaborating to
> build the TCP/IP-based world.  At the time, there were lots of
> specific projects using TCP/IP to interact, e.g., Packet Radio,
> Satnet, Arpanet, etc. etc., and all of the TCP-related work was being
> done by people working on one of those projects.  But there was no
> name for the collection of projects and the aggregate system being
> built.  As I recall, this was causing some confusion as you worked up
> the government bureaucracy, which could affect funding, so it was
> important to fix.
>
> Vint  proposed the term "Catenet" be used, reflecting the
> conCATEnation of NETworks which TCP enabled.  While this didn't quite
> elicit boos, the overall reception was pretty negative.  Someone
> (Postel?) said it would sound like we were doing research involving
> small furry mammals.  After much discussion, no phrasing seemed better
> than "Internet", so Vint declared that "The Internet" (or perhaps "The
> ARPA Internet") would be the name.  The "Internet Project" maybe
> wasn't born that day, but that's when I think it got it's name.  Does
> anyone else remember that meeting?
>
> It would be interesting to know if the phrase "The Internet" was ever
> legally protected, and by whom.  After the recent discussions about
> who invented "Email", nothing would surprise me.  Perhaps Xerox really
> did invent "The Internet" according to the legal system.  They did
> have a lot of lawyers....
>
> /Jack Haverty
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 8:46 AM, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:
>> ARPANET (the subnet of IMPs) did not change when TCP/IP was put into
>> the hosts and gateways were  fielded. The Internet persisted after the
>> demise of ARPANET, NSFNET, PRNETs, Packet Satellite Net, etc.
>> The term "internet" (as opposed to the more general term
>> "internetworking") has always been associated with the TCP/IP
>> protocols and their associated suite of other protocols.
>>
>> ARPANET was not part of an internet until the addition of TCP/IP in
>> the hosts and the addition of gateways interconnecting distinctly
>> managed "autonomous systems".
>>
>> I think it is baloney that "no one can define the Internet"
>>
>> v
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Dave Crocker <dhc2 at dcrocker.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 7/23/2012 6:07 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:
>>>>
>>>> No one can really define "The Internet".  Or maybe just everyone has
>>>> their own idea.
>>>
>>>
>>> There was a discussion on this list some time ago, that converged on a
>>> relatively small set of alternative definitions, each with a legitimate
>>> rationale, IMO.  People varied in which they preferred.  My feeling is
>>> that that's fine, as long as the choice is stated, when declaring when
>>> and who invented the net.
>>>
>>> An incomplete list of the alternatives includes a cross-product of:
>>>
>>>   * Proposal vs. initial implementation vs. initial operation
>>>
>>>   * packet-switching vs. heterogeneous comms h/w interconnect vs.
>>> heterogeneous administration interconnect
>>>
>>> The distinction between a category of technology, a particular
>>> technology, and a particular service operation also make it worth some
>>> notational alternatives such as 'internetworking' vs. "The Internet".
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> DEC had DECNet.  Novell had Netware.  PTTs had X.25/X.75.  Banyan
>>>> did Vines. Apple did Appletalk.  Microsoft joined the fray.   ARPANet
>>>> had its own technology.
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> All of those "internets" shared a common characteristic.  Computers,
>>>> and applications, could interact in powerful ways - as long as they
>>>> all adopted the same candidate technology.
>>>
>>>
>>> Well, several of those connected very different kinds of comms hardware, but
>>> yes, they put a layer of service technology on top that homogenized things.
>>> I think X.75 was the exception and, in its is way, really did permit
>>> Internetworking.
>>>
>>> Except for X.75, the thing about your list is that each of those had to be
>>> run under a homogeneous administration.
>>>
>>> That's why I prefer to the non-hardware definition of "internetworking" as
>>> the inter-connection of networks under independent administration.
>>>
>>> However I prefer to define "The Internet" as the start of Arpanet operation,
>>> since it's been in continuous operation since then, with all of its
>>> original, user-level applications still in use.
>>>
>>> I'm also obviously biased to buttress this view by noting the remarkable
>>> similarity between the email messages sent by Tomlinson in 1971 and the core
>>> of mail formats we we today.  This end-to-end service orientation prompted
>>> RFC 1775, To be "On" the Internet.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Somewhere along that path, over the 30+ years or so of the journey
>>>> so far, The Internet was invented.  It's hard to define...the
>>>
>>>
>>> Per the above, I don't think it is hard to define.  There is a relatively
>>> small range of credible definitions.  What's difficult is getting everyone
>>> to agree on just one.  I suspect it's not that difficult to get agreement on
>>> the plausibility of the small range.
>>>
>>> So the real requirement when discussion the invention is to first state the
>>> definition that provides criteria.
>>>
>>>
>>> d/
>>> --
>>>  Dave Crocker
>>>  Brandenburg InternetWorking
>>>  bbiw.net