[ih] A comment on the seven layer model

[Miles Fidelman]

Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> On 4/22/25 13:58, Steve Crocker wrote:
>> Jack,
>>
>> I liked your comment, "I gave up long ago on trying to stuff this 
>> into a 7-layer diagram and explain it."
>>
>
> My first encounter with Networking was when I became one of Lick's 
> thesis students, and got thoroughly indoctrinated into his 
> "Intergalactic Network" vision.   Later he was my boss as we worked to 
> implement some of his vision with not enough computer or networking 
> power.   Computers would be somehow connected through networks, every 
> user would have their own "personal computer", and those computers 
> would interact to help humans do whatever humans do, only occasionally 
> actually interacting with the human through some kind of UI.
>
In 1968, Licklider & Taylor wrote "In a few years, men will be able to 
communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face."

In 1971, I arrived at MIT, Lick was back at MIT haunting the 545 Tech 
Square break room, I had an account on the AI Lab PDP-10, Ray Tomlinson 
sent the first email, Ken Pogran brought it to Multics, Alan Kay 
proclaimed "the best way to predict the future is to invent it," and the 
world of "rough consensus & running code" was off and running.  I caught 
a bug about email ruling the world, went off to launch a small email 
hosting company, build military systems at Sanders, then off to BBN to 
stay up late with wizards, networking the planet.  I had the great 
pleasure & privilege of working for Ken, and with Ray.  In 1992, the 
Internet opened to the public, Dave Clark coined the phrase "Rough 
Consensus & Running Code," and I launched the Center for Civic 
Networking - to bring IETF-style town-meeting democracy & infrastructure 
governance to the world.

Larry Lessig famously wrote, "code is law" - to which I add, "protocols 
implement law."  Rules of Engagement, Rules of Order, Standard Operating 
Procedures, Plans & Programs, the MDMP (Military Decision Making 
Process), RFPs & Proposals, the RFC process, crowdsourcing & grand 
challenges - all examples of high-level protocols, "cognitive protocols" 
or protocols of thought, protocols of community, collaboration, and 
creation if you will. The stuff of John Lilly & "Programming & 
Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer."

And now that we've networked the planet, connected 6 billion of us into 
an Internet of Minds, it's time to start thinking about what succeeds 
Roberts Rules for thinking & working together as a planetary scale human 
enterprise.

My sense is that these take the form of protocols that look a lot like 
language & engineering process - particularly Systems Engineering & 
Systems Engineering Management processes - Internet Engineering, and 
Infrastructure Acquisitions, Operations, Administration, Maintenance, 
and Governance processes as they're emerging from the open source world 
(massive concurrency, loose coupling, rough consensus, local initiative, 
tied together by Distributed Autonomous Organizations linked by 
protocols supporting massive replication).

----
Steve... I have to thank you for the writing prompt, the timing is 
perfect.  I think I've just written the preface to my next book, which 
is going to be titled something like:

Protocols Of Community, Collaboration, and Creation
Programming, Metaprogramming, Systems Programming, and Microprogramming 
for an Internet of Mind
The Art, Science, Technology & Craft of Building Worlds & Making History

along with the CONOPS & Systems Engineering Management Plan for Civic.Net
with the Mission Goal of Applying IETF & FOSS Models to Restoring Town 
Meeting Democracy, Rebuilding Neighborhood Infrastructure, and Rebooting 
America for another 250 Years of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of 
Happiness (or maybe Truth, Justice, and the American Way)

.... it's time to make some new Internet History!

Miles







-- 
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