[ih] IETF relevance (was Memories of Flag Day?)
Miles Fidelman
mfidelman at meetinghouse.net
Fri Sep 1 11:12:57 PDT 2023
Thanks Vint!
To follow up, if I might - since you were there from the beginning (I
landed at MIT in 1971, just before Ray's first email, and saw how MIT
adopted ARPANET technology, then got to BBN in 1985, just in time to
help split off the DDN - the period leading up to the Flag Day is mostly
anecdotal history for me)...
I've long used the Internet as a model for how communities can approach
infrastructure master planning - serving as the basis for our work at
the Center for Civic Networking, running a growth planning exercise for
Cambridge, and later, in our work with communities around municipal
broadband.
Now, I'm gearing up a new effort, focused on community-level
crowdsourcing for major infrastructure overhaul (as is started to be
mandated by electrification ordinances). The simple notion being that
of forming local working groups, to run grand-challenge like exercises,
design charettes, crowd funding for projects like a complete
infrastructure rebuild for a condo complex (like the one I'm living in,
and serving on the board of). How to pull such groups together remains
a black art - and insights from the original model are always helpful.
In that context, might you share some pithy observations of significant
events in the early life of the ARPANET & Internet - how various working
groups came together in the days following Lick's initial posting to
ARPA/IPTO. Who did what, to whom, leading to a bunch of folks coming
together into ad hoc & ongoing working groups of various sorts? And, in
particular, what conditions/events provided impetus, urgency, and built
momentum?
Thanks Very Much,
Miles
vinton cerf wrote:
> TCP/IP came out of work that Bob Kahn and I did along with my graduate
> students at Stanford. But the INWG (slightly more formal extension of
> NWG when it became IFIP WG 6.1) contributed in a highly collaborative
> fashion. So did UCL and BBN in early implementation phases of TCP and
> TCP/IP.
>
> I tend to associate NWG with Arpanet Host-Host Protocols (and
> application protocols)
> and IAB (later IETF) with TCP/IP and associated applications
>
> v
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 10:29 AM Miles Fidelman
> <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>> wrote:
>
> Well Vint might have a definitive voice on this.
>
> So... Vint,
>
> Would you consider TCP/IP to have been initiated by the NWG?
>
> What about SMTP - which originated as a late-night hack (that
> eventually became SMTP)? As I recall, that was initially
> announced via a postal mail packet.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Miles
>
> vinton cerf wrote:
>> +1
>> v
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 9:57 AM Steve Crocker via
>> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>>
>> Well...
>>
>> The original suite of protocols for the Arpanet -- NCP,
>> Telnet, FTP, et al
>> -- were developed by the Network Working Group (NWG). The NWG
>> evolved over
>> the years into the IETF. The formal creation of the IETF was
>> roughly
>> mid-1980s. The process of formally declaring a protocol a
>> proposed/draft/(full) standard evolved over the years.
>> Depending on how
>> precise you want to be about the existence of the IETF and the
>> formalization of protocols, I think you can make the case
>> either way. From
>> my perspective, I would say the original suite of protocols
>> did indeed
>> originate in the (predecessor of) the IETF.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 12:48 PM Miles Fidelman via
>> Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>>
>> > Traditionally, protocols have never "originated" with the
>> IETF - they
>> > become standardized, and maybe standards through the RFC
>> process, under
>> > the IETF aegis. Right back to the original DoD Protocol
>> Suite (did the
>> > IETF even exist when the DDN Protocol Handbook was first
>> printed?).
>> >
>> > Miles
>> >
>> > Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history wrote:
>> > > On 29-Aug-23 05:52, Miles Fidelman via Internet-history
>> wrote:
>> > >> Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
>> > >>> On 8/24/2023 4:07 PM, John Klensin via Internet-history
>> wrote:
>> > >>>> Probably a larger fraction of applications work has
>> come to the
>> > >>>> IETF already half-developed and in search of
>> refinement and
>> > >>>> validation by
>> > >>>> the community
>> > >>>
>> > >>> I'm sure there are examples, but I can't think of an
>> application
>> > >>> protocol that was originated in the IETF over, say, the
>> last 25 years,
>> > >>> that has seen widespread success.
>> > >>>
>> > >>> d/
>> > >>>
>> > >> Seems to me that HTTP remains under the IETF umbrella.
>> > >
>> > > But it did *not* originate in the IETF. It actually
>> originated about
>> > > 20 metres horizontally and 3 metres vertically from my
>> office at CERN,
>> > > more than a year before TimBL presented it at IETF 23 (I
>> was wrong a few
>> > > days ago to assert that IETF 26 was Tim's first
>> attendance). The WWW BOF
>> > > at IETF 26 was more than 2 years after HTTP was first
>> deployed, to my
>> > > personal knowledge.
>> > >
>> > >> Is it not the
>> > >> RFC process, and IANA, that actually matter, in the
>> scheme of things?
>> > >
>> > > In the case of HTTP, it was running code that long
>> preceded both rough
>> > > consensus and an RFC. I think this is completely normal
>> and still the
>> > > best method. Second best is code developed in parallel
>> with the spec.
>> > > Third best is OSI.
>> > >
>> > > Brian
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
>> > In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
>> >
>> > Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
>> > Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
>> > In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
>> > nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown
>> >
>> > --
>> > Internet-history mailing list
>> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> >
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>
>
>
> --
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
>
> Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
> Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
> In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
> nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown
>
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown
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