[ih] Governments' Bureaucracy and The Internet

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 08-Nov-26 10:35, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:

<snip>

> But the bureaucratic history is also an important, and likely
> influential, part of Internet History.  Did bureaucracy help establish
> The Internet, or hinder it?    There were other governments involved,
> not just the US.  What kinds of such issues were there in Europe or
> elsewhere as the Internet grew?

There was certainly a phase in Europe when bureaucracy in the form of
the European GOSIP profile was intentionally used to hinder the Internet,
both by some European Commission officials and by those defending the PTT
monopolies in the large West European countries. Major projects funded by
Brussels *required* OSI, and as soon as the monopoly carriers understood
TCP/IP they used all their bureaucratic (regulatory) weapons against it.

I kept as clear of "European" projects as I could, and one reason was the
odious reporting requirements. If you missed a "deliverable" (i.e. a report)
the money stopped (or Brussels would require advance payments to be returned).
Basically the one thing in a project that was compulsory was keeping up to
date with your reports. But this worked against OSI-based projects so,
paradoxically, it allowed Internet deployment in Europe to advance while
the bureaucracy was only interested in OSI monthly reports.

Regards/Ngā mihi
    Brian Carpenter