[ih] Dan Lynch has passed away

[Dave Crocker]

On 3/31/2024 9:40 AM, vinton cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> The founder of INTEROP and former IAB member (1990?-1994) passed away 30
> March 2024.


Within the Internet community of those days, it was more than clear just 
how important Dan's contribution was, to the rapid deployment and use of 
a commercial Internet. Outside of the community, I think his role of 
aggressively facilitating the technology transfer has been largely missed.

Within the community, direct interoperability testing among 
implementations -- rather than bench-based 'compliance' testing of 
individual implementations -- had been established for many years. It 
was already an integral part of getting new protocols and services 
running widely.

But how to inculcate a larger commercial world of highly independent 
providers, to such a very unfamiliar practice? This is what Dan 
achieved, with a continuing series of events that had presentations 
required to provide serious education, and exhibits required to operate 
on the show network.

The events embodied the goal of 'rough consensus and running code'. At 
scale. And with an enormous sense of fun.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
mast:@dcrocker at mastodon.social