[ih] A revolution in Internet point-of-view - Was Re: Internet analyses (Was Re: IPv8...)
the keyboard of geoff goodfellow
geoff at iconia.com
Sun May 10 19:43:18 PDT 2026
during the time starting in the 70's when BBN tried to assert control over
both the IMP code and the Tenex code: we Tenex system janitors characterized
BBN's "attitude"/"position" as being one of "Excessive Capitalist Zeal".
can't tell ya how many times a request to BBN came back with the reply of
"we're not funded to do that/we need funding to do that".
when the Tenex funding support ended (IIRC at Tenex 1.34) BBN would not
release anything further that they did with Tenex 1.35 -- which yours truly
believes was final Tenex version.
g
On Sun, May 10, 2026 at 7:18 PM Steve Crocker via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> Two points: one small and the other larger.
>
> 1. Dave Farber and Dave Crocker would probably like to see CSNET
> included in this list.
>
> 2. Regarding control of intellectual property, I actively
> participated in the [D]ARPA/IPTO computer science research community
> from
> 1965 to 1981:
>
> - 1965-66. UCLA Network Computer Linking Experiment. Attempted to
> connect the three IBM 7094s on the UCLA campus. Designed and built a
> lightweight time-sharing system for IBM 360/40s, intending for them
> to
> serve as front-ends to the 7904s and connect to each other. We read
> and
> understood the Multics papers. Project died, primarily due to
> political
> issues within UCLA. I was the junior member of the team.
>
> - 1966. Worked for Professor Gerry Estrin in the Engineering Dept
> when he received the remainder of the project funding mentioned
> above.
> Estrin focused on measuring computer systems.
>
> - 1967 to May 1968. Graduate student in Minsky's AI Lab at MIT.
> Participated in documenting Richard Greenblatt's MacHack 6 Chess
> program.
> Spent some time with Danny Bobrow's AI group at BBN. Gained
> exposure to
> two operating systems for the PDP-10: ITS at the AI Lab and
> Tenex at BBN.
> And Interlisp at BBN.
>
> - May 1968 to May 1971. UCLA. Intended to spend just the summer but
> decided to transfer back to UCLA. Attended the first IPTO
> graduate student
> conference. 30 people from across the IPTO-sponsored sites,
> including Vint
> Cerf, Alan Kay, John Warnock, Pat Winston, Bob Balzer and several
> others
> who made noteworthy contributions over the next several years. My
> first
> exposure to the community and the cohesive effect of funding from
> DARPA/IPTO.
>
> - Summer 1968. Designed and partially built a time-sharing system
> for the XDS, née SDS, Sigma 7 patterned after MIT-AI's ITS.
> Discovered
> Lawrence Livermore Labs already had a time-sharing system for
> the Sigma 7.
> We asked if we could use it; they readily agreed and cooperated
> fully. LLL
> is a Department of Energy Lab and was not funded by DARPA but was, of
> course funded by the USG.
>
> - August 1968. First meeting of representatives from the first four
> Arpanet sites. Primarily graduate students. The Network Working
> Group
> emerged organically, as did the RFCs and eventually the IETF.
>
> - July 1971-August 1974. [D[ARPA/IPTO Research Program Manager.
> Primarily focused on AI, Speech Understanding, and Computer
> Security, but
> helped a bit with the Arpanet activities.
>
> - Nov 1974-July 1981. Researcher at USC-ISI. Focused primarily on
> Formal Methods (Program Verification.
>
> I share the above so you can assess the following comments.
>
> Until about 1973, I never saw any issues regarding the distribution of
> research results. Of course, very few results also had immediate
> commercial value, so the question was perhaps moot. However, I have the
> strong impression that sharing all kinds of results, including software was
> taken for granted across the community and probably beyond.
>
> Toward the end of my time at DARPA, BBN tried to assert control over both
> the IMP code and the Tenex code. The IMP code was particularly contentious
> because a BBN employee started a competitive company and requested the
> code.
>
> The contracts supporting these projects had 100% government funding and
> gave the government "unlimited rights in data." (I quote these words
> because that was the formal terminology in the contract.). As I learned,
> those words permit the government to take delivery of the code and do with
> it whatever it wants, including distributing it to whomever it chooses.
> However, those words alone do not require the contractor to distribute the
> code to others.
>
> That incident brought the control of intellectual property arising from the
> research contracts to the surface. Until then, the ethic within the
> community, as far as I experienced it, was enthusiastic sharing. Indeed it
> was a form of validation of the work and hence a mark of success. I could
> see the need for a software repository, but I left before I could initiate
> action in that direction. In any case, the key point is that until that
> time, I believe it was natural and standard practice to share software when
> it was of interest. The only "restriction" was appropriate attribution.
> When creating the RFCs, we intended the maximum degree of sharing. The
> initial rules for RFCs were based on speedy distribution without review or
> control. The idea of charging for documents or requiring group membership
> was intrinsically antithetical to the ethic of enabling others to benefit
> from the work.
>
> Quite a lot changed after that. Free and open source software became a
> thing as did a variety of software licenses. When I went to Aerospace in
> 1981 to set up a computer science research lab, we paid $500 for a Berkeley
> Unix license. It was a trivial sum. Nonetheless, someone in the Aerospace
> legal department reviewed the license and felt obligated to negotiate with
> the University of California Regents. When I finally went to find out what
> was taking so long, he explained he was only trying to help me. I asked
> him to stop and we were up and running shortly thereafter.
>
> Vint and others can report on how things evolved after from 1974 onward.
>
> Steve
>
>
> On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 8:49 AM Vint Cerf via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > "From the earliest days, the ARPANET & Internet were self-funding from
> > revenue - yes ARPA & then NSF provided funds for researchers to purchase
> > telecom, but then came the regionals (notably NEARnet) that started
> > accepting commercial traffic, and then the whole infrastructure was
> opened
> > to the public in 1992."
> >
> > Miles, that's not quite right. ARPANET was paid for directly by ARPA -
> > funcing BBN to build and operate, funding universities and research labs
> to
> > develop host level protocols and applications. The Internet development
> > initially consisted of ARPA-funded Arpanet, Packet Radio Net and Packet
> > Satellite Net. The came NSFNET, paid for by NSF and implemented by IBM,
> MCI
> > and Merit. NASA Science Internet linking NASA labs. -paid for by NASA.
> > ESNET linking DOE leaps, paid for by DOE. The regional networks were
> > partially funded by NSF but were required to become self- supporting
> over a
> > 5 year period (initially 3). It was only in 1989 that UUNET, PSINET and
> > CERFNET were commercial operators that were formally allowed to connect
> to
> > the USG networks in 1992 (although permission was given to connect
> > commercial MCI Mail to NSFNET in 1989 as an experiment undertaken by
> CNRI.
> >
> > v
> >
> >
> > On Sun, May 10, 2026 at 8:10 PM Miles Fidelman via Internet-history <
> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Re. "give away:"
> > >
> > >
> > > 1.
> > > Those were the days when, if the government paid for something, the IP
> > > went into the public domain.
> > > 2.
> > > The Internet grew a lot like the airlines & aerospace industry.
> Between
> > > war & airmail, early government spending - for goods & services - paid
> > for
> > > infrastructure & an industrial ecosystem that then took off on its own.
> > > (The phrase "primed the pump" comes to mind.)
> > > 3.
> > > From the earliest days, the ARPANET & Internet were self-funding from
> > > revenue - yes ARPA & then NSF provided funds for researchers to
> purchase
> > > telecom, but then came the regionals (notably NEARnet) that started
> > > accepting commercial traffic, and then the whole infrastructure was
> > opened
> > > to the public in 1992.
> > >
> > > Miles
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Internet-history <internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org> on
> > > behalf of Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> > > internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> > > Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2026 5:02 PM
> > > To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org <internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >
> > > Subject: Re: [ih] A revolution in Internet point-of-view - Was Re:
> > > Internet analyses (Was Re: IPv8...)
> > >
> > > There was a different climate in the 1960s/1970s. That was the era of
> > > the Vietnam War and associated protests and events such as Kent State.
> > > Lots of pushback especially from young folks. Even the resignation of
> a
> > > POTUS, under threat of removal from office. Lots of distrust of
> > > government. Lots of anger.
> > >
> > > Is it so different now?
> > >
> > > But I don't recall that as the dominating factor in the 60s/70s/80s.
> > > The USG did not "give away" the Internet. The Internet (and previously
> > > the ARPANET) was always considered an Experiment. That followed the
> > > charter of ARPA - "Advanced" Research projects Agency. Research
> > > produces ideas. Experiments build prototypes to test theories.
> > > Research produces knowledge. Freely sharing that knowledge would be
> > > beneficial to the "real systems" that followed. Artifacts, such as
> > > protocols, algorithms, equipment designs, software, and such concrete
> > > items are at best prototypes for the real systems of the future.
> > >
> > > The "real system" was expected to be OSI. Of course that didn't
> > > happen. But it was The Plan. Even the USG had a program called GOSIP
> > > (Government OSI Profile?) to plan for the use of OSI throughout USG.
> As
> > > long as The Internet was considered just a research experiment, it had
> > > no long-term value and giving it away didn't raise significant
> > > objections. It might even help OSI development. OSI was the target.
> > >
> > > Instead, what happened was an explosion of industry-led alternatives to
> > > both The Internet and the OSI promises. In the "multiprotocol router"
> > > stage of the late 1980s and 1990s, all sorts of other schemes were
> > > produced by companies, each hoping that their technology would be the
> > > winner to create the communications infrastructure of the future, and
> > > all the others would just fade away. Most of them had some ambition of
> > > global domination, e.g., by offering products to create a "global LAN".
> > > But the users were impatient, and selected the only technology which
> was
> > > available to them at the time to tie all their IT into a cohesive
> > > infrastructure - The Internet and TCP/IP. Its adoption by the USG
> > > established confidence that The Internet would live long and prosper.
> > >
> > > It was straightforward for a corporation to build its own clone of The
> > > Internet, separate from but perhaps connected to The Internet for
> > > electronic mail service. So lots of corporations did just that. The
> > > IT industry noticed, and itself adopted The Internet as its product
> > > architecture. A similar history might be told of Unix and Linux,
> > > becoming the base IT environment for all those servers on The Internet.
> > >
> > > So, ... is it so different today?
> > >
> > > The Internet has clearly won at the levels of datagrams and web. TCP/IP
> > > and HTTP and their friends are the de facto standard.
> > >
> > > But a similar war is now happening at levels where AI and Social Media
> > > live, on top of The Internet. I see lots of corporations creating
> > > competing AI services or social media platforms, each hoping to be the
> > > winner and become the infrastructure of the future. Even electronic
> > > mail has fragmented into a blizzard of ways for people to communicate.
> > >
> > > But unlike the situation 50 or 60 years ago, I haven't noticed any
> > > ARPA-like effort to do the research and "give away" the results for
> > > others to use. Such things are what The Internet considers "apps" and
> > > outside their scope? Perhaps such research organizations exist, other
> > > than in corporate walled gardens, and I just haven't been looking hard
> > > enough. There may be no technology "waiting in the wings" for users
> > > to embrace until one of them becomes the clear winner.
> > >
> > > Is that an "attitude of society"?
> > >
> > > /Jack Haverty
> > >
> > >
> > > It seems to me that today's
> > >
> > > On 5/10/26 11:36, Greg Skinner via Internet-history wrote:
> > > > On Apr 29, 2026, at 6:13 AM, Andrew Sullivan via Internet-history <
> > > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > > >> Tempted as I am to editorialize about what this might mean for the
> > > Internet (I am profoundly depressed about it), I wonder whether those
> who
> > > where involved in the Internet's earliest developments have any
> > reflections
> > > on the attitudes of the societies at the time. For instance, kc claffy
> > > once observed to me that it was an inspired bit of industrial policy
> that
> > > led the USG (partly it seems to me at the prodding of Al Gore, despite
> > all
> > > the grief he gets about the topic) to give away the Internet rather
> than
> > > lock it into any particular corporate ownership. I know there is
> another
> > > thread that has discussed the BSD-TCP/IP importance, but I guess I'm
> > asking
> > > for something different: was there a different _social_ environment, in
> > > your estimation and upon reflection, than there is (say) today such
> that
> > > the USG could give such a technology away as they did? I find it
> > > impossible to imagine that happening today, when every organization
> > either
> > > public or private seems to be orieted entirely towards maximum
> short-term
> > > financial return on investment, ignoring the longer term benefits.
> (And,
> > > to avoid any doubt, let me be clear that this is not a particular swipe
> > at
> > > the current USG or any people in charge of it. This has seemed obvious
> > to
> > > me for a decade or more.)
> > > >>
> > > > I would also include the Linux importance. [1] [2] Quite a bit of
> > TCP/IP
> > > became available via open source due to Linux.
> > > >
> > > > --gregbo
> > > >
> > > > [1] https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/
> > > > [2] http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > > -
> > > Unsubscribe:
> > >
> >
> https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > After July 1, Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:
> > Vint Cerf
> > 1435 Woodhurst Blvd
> > McLean, VA 22102
> >
> > Until July 1, send postal/overnight deliveries to:
> > Google, LLC
> > 1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor
> > Reston, VA 20190
> > +1 650-224-2788
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > -
> > Unsubscribe:
> >
> https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
> >
>
>
> --
> Sent by a Verified
>
> sender
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> -
> Unsubscribe:
> https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b?The%20list%20to%20be%20unsubscribed%20from=Internet-history
>
>
--
Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
living as The Truth is True
More information about the Internet-history
mailing list