[ih] Correct name for early TCP/IP working group?

[Jack Haverty]

My recollections, all IIRC of course, after almost 50 years (not 
necessarily in chronological order):

- The "Internet Project" was, circa 1977, actually an informal 
collection of separate ARPA projects.  Packet Radio (PRNET) was building 
wireless networks with mobility to be used in jeeps, helicopters, etc.   
SATNET was building transatlantic networking by satellite.  WBNET 
(WideBand NETwork) was building a "high bandwidth" (3 Mb/sec) satellite 
network spanning the continental US.  The ARPANET had been operating for 
almost a decade and was now run by DCA instead of ARPA. The "Gateway 
Project" was building a device to attach to a PRNET and pass TCP traffic 
across the boundaries as an initial experiment in the new Cerf/Kahn 
concept of TCP.

- Each of these groups had its own set of contractors working on that 
project, using what was available at the time to colaborate and 
communicate, e.g., meetings and email across the ARPANET.

- At the time, the "ARPANET crowd" was skeptical that the "datagram" 
nature of TCP could be made to work.   Traditional networks, including 
the ARPANET, had elaborate internal mechanisms to provide a "virtual 
circuit" service to its users.  Although the ARPANET had a simple 
"datagram mode" (aka messages of "subtype 3"?), there was strong 
reluctance to permit its use other than for very limited experiments, 
for fear such use would crash the ARPANET.

- There was some work however within the ARPANET IMP software to 
acknowledge the need for multiple networks.   For example, some of the 
formats of data as it passed through the ARPANET included fields 
labelled "Network Number".  AFAIK this was never actually fully 
implemented so the ARPANET itself never achieved connectivity between 
multiple networks until TCP was deployed.

- My recollection is that I had heard of INWG, but never knew much about 
their work (still don't).   IIRC, none of the people involved in 
implementation (building, coding, operating) of the various "Internet 
projects" were also involved in INWG.  I had the impression that the 
INWG was part of the group that thought the datagram architecture was 
unworkable.   Mentally, I associated it with X.25 and X.75 style of 
interconnecting networks.   But perhaps that was a mistake.

- As the various ARPA projects matured and were interconnected with 
Gateways, people involved in each project saw a need to interact with 
people involved in other projects.  Meetings of the "Internet Project" 
began, but the scope was very broad, so everyone wanted to attend all 
such meetings.  At one point ARPA restricted attendance to 2 people per 
contractor as a way to manage the meeting size and cost.

- When TCPV2 was evolving into TCP/IPV4, two separate groups were 
formed: the "TCP Working Group" and the "Internet Working Group". These 
met and interacted separately.

- After a few months, we observed that the main results of the TCP WG 
were changes to the IP Header, and the main results of the IP WG were 
changes to the TCP Header.   The decision was made to fold the groups 
back together as the "Internet Working Group".   That decision was of 
course Vint's, but by then I think the ICCB had been formed and had a role.

- At about the time that Vint was moving from ARPA to MCI, the technical 
work was reorganized into two components.  I recall it happened at the 
final ICCB meeting, sometime in early 1983.  The IETF was formed to 
Engineer the operational Internet as it grew. The IRTF was formed to 
pursue the Research into all of the unsolved research issues - things 
like congestion, multi-path routing, etc.

- At some point in this progression, Jon started collected IENs rather 
than RFCs.   IENs were part of the Internet Experiment, while RFCs were 
more associated with ARPANET issues.

- The size of "Internet Meetings" continued to grow, despite efforts to 
constrain attendance.  It was difficult to find a location with large 
enough rooms to accommodate the next meeting.  The ultimate Internet 
Wheeler Dealer (Dan Lynch) noticed this mismatch of supply and demand.  
He organized some early meeting venues, e.g., one in a hotel in Monterey 
California, which became known as "Geeks On The Bay In Monterey".  That 
led quickly to the Interop shows.   Problem solved.

Jack Haverty



On 1/24/25 07:28, Tom Lyon via Internet-history wrote:
> Here's some physical evidence in support of INWG:
> https://mastodon.social/@aka_pugs/111093333460402486
>
> On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 7:07 AM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> On 1/24/2025 6:28 AM, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
>>> notes called INWG Notes
>>
>> As an outsider to the effort, who was vaguely 'around', when I read
>> Noel's note and before reading Vint's, INWG was the name that I thought
>> of.  Count this as an informal survey result of community perception...
>>
>> d/
>>
>> --
>> Dave Crocker
>>
>> Brandenburg InternetWorking
>> bbiw.net
>> bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
>> mast: @dcrocker at mastodon.social
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>

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