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

[Jack Haverty]

I can believe that 1974 was the earliest appearance of "internet".
It's interesting though that "internet" isn't defined anywhere in
RFC675 (based on a quick computer search), and all but a few of the
uses of "internet" in the document are "internetwork" rather than
"internet".  So, a historian might conclude that RFC675 was referring
to the little-i internet(s), rather than specifically what we now call
The Internet?  Also, somewhere between RFC675 and RFC793,
"Transmission Control Program" became "Transmission Control Protocol".
 More confusion.

I wonder whether the term "internet" was used in other documents of
the era, e.g., XNS from Xerox, or IBM, or CCITT.  As I recall, at that
1970s-era meeting I mentioned, the primary objection to "Internet" was
that it already had other meanings and might be confusing.  But there
wasn't any better alternative.

I can understand why historians have such a difficult job sorting
stuff out from the distant past.  We who were there all (think we)
know from firsthand experience, but someone looking back a century or
two might have real trouble.

Even the Wall Street Journal.

/Jack


On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:
> 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