[ih] Saving IETF history

[Toerless Eckert]

So who would back in the day read this documentation, and at which point in
time did it become "public" ?

If it was produced grudgingly and maybe not even read by government folks
funding the project, one can still be very happy about at that point in time
maybe seemingly useless bureaucracy now. Very interesting read.

Cheers
    Toerless


On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 09:30:21AM -0400, dave walden via Internet-history wrote:
> The 1973 IMP had extensive documentation although not for the purpose of a
> patent dispute and not exactly for the same listing version as we were
> analyzing.
> See https://walden-family.com/impcode/IMPSYS-Document-with-flowcharts.pdf
> and'
> https://walden-family.com/impcode/Technical_Information_Report_89.pdf
> These also are now archived at the Software History Center of the Computer
> History Museum.
> 
> Such documentation was not our normal practice.  It was required one year by
> whichever government person was managing our contract --- for a purpose I do
> not remember.  More normally, the documentation was the listing and in the
> memory of the program maintainer.
> 
> 
> On 5/12/2021 11:21 PM, Toerless Eckert via Internet-history wrote:
> > Thanks for the story, Jack.
> > 
> > Given how much of a believer in good public documentation i am, however curious:
> > 
> > Was the functionality in question well enough publically documented with
> > according early dates ? I suspect not befcause i would be surprised if the documentation
> > would not have been good enough, if it existed. After all, most patents are also graanted
> > without evidence that they work, so its patenting of concept, not evidence
> > thereof (which might have been different in decades before my time though..).
> > 
> > Cheers
> >      Toerless
> > 
> > 
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