[ih] This Review is for Everyone

[Dave Crocker]

On 3/22/2026 11:23 AM, Craig Partridge via Internet-history wrote:
> INarc split in 1986
> into IETF, centered on right-now Internet challenges,


The time-frame included another change that is probably relevant and 
related:  growth of purely-commercial Internet tech activities.

In 1986 I started work at Ungermann-Bass, which was one of the original 
Local Area Networking (actually enterprise networking) companies, and 
was using a derivative of the XNS protocols.

But it started seeing a demand for TCP/IP-based capabilities, as 
Internet tech was starting to flow on customers' independent enterprise 
networks, unrelated to the 'public' Internet.

So I managed an effort to put this onto UB's 'smart' PC cards (which an 
Intel 80186 on it.)

Staying current on technical changes coming out of the Internet 
engineering community was obviously essential.(*)  And I think it was 
around 1987 that I asked to attend the technical meetings.

The problem was that the these meetings were restricted to 
government-related groups.  Any commercial companies that were 
participating were related to government work.  We weren't.

I pressed the question and there was some extended discussion. (Hmmm.  
Perhaps the mailing list(s) were open membership, but not the f2f meetings.)

I don't remember who it was but someone broke the impasse by noting 
that, after all, everyone knew me from the Arpanet.  So I was allowed to 
attend the next meeting.

Which created the precedent for independent, commercial participation.  
And by the next meeting, attendance was open to all.


d/


(*) A special version of 'staying current' was actually introducing new 
work.

    A timely case in point was that we were one of 3 companies that had 
done independent development of IBM's Netbios over TCP/IP.  IBM (and 
Sytek) had only published the API, with no details about the underlying 
protocols.  So all 3 of us made whatever choices we felt appropriate.  
For example, we even added the ability to link Netbios across different 
locations.

    Some of had experience with the 'co-opetition' model of 
collaborative specification effort common the the networking community.  
Others did not.  This eventually led to an impasse that required call on 
Vint to come in and mediate.  RFC 1001/1002 was the result:  March, 1987.

-- 

Dave Crocker

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