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

[Dave Crocker]

On 7/29/2012 9:00 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:
> I didn't mean that, in some alternate universe, the "internet today"
> based on not-TCP would necessarily be anything like The TCP-based
> Internet that we are actually experiencing in our universe.  It might
> be much smaller, more expensive, slower, provide less functionality,


Well, I think one of the interesting aspects of an exercise like this is 
to consider what the important differences might have been and whether 
any of them could be classed as showstoppers.

Remember a world of telephone monopoly, with literally everything that 
touched the network required to come from the operator.  We well might 
have wound up with a global digital network that would have been more 
like that than the significantly more competitive and varied and robust 
and... that we do have.

In any event, your extended list of government proactive efforts for 
TCP/IP usage are well-taken.

But to riff off of a phrase that Marshall Rose coined -- with enough 
thrust, pigs /can/ fly -- some of the alternatives would have required 
planetary levels of thrust.

d/
-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net