[8622] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: RFC1000 (Partial respponse to part 1)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen D Crocker)
Sat Nov 27 09:07:53 1993
To: Michael Hauben <hauben@cs.columbia.edu>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 26 Nov 93 23:40:47 EST."
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 93 09:06:27 -0500
From: Stephen D Crocker <crocker@tis.com>
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Michael,
I subscribe to both com-priv and the ietf list, so I've seen your
messages. Part of an answer is contained below; I'm short on time and
will continue later.
Some of your questions ask why things happened they way they did;
others ask what I meant when I wrote particular sentences. I'll do
what I can to answer both, but I can be definitive about only the
latter.
> From: Michael Hauben <hauben@cs.columbia.edu>
> To: com-priv@psi.com
> Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1993 23:40:47 -0500
> Subject: RFC1000 - Questions about the origins of ARPANET Protocols 1/2
>
>
> The history contained in the introduction to RFC 1000 raises some
> interesting questions. Please send a copy of any answer to me at
> hauben@cs.columbia.edu, as I do not belong to the list.
> I'm sure others might be interested in the answers, so
> even if answers are not public I will either post a summary
> and/or my paper when it is done. I am working on an independent
> study looking into the history of TCP/IP.
>
> >THE ORIGINS OF RFCS - by Stephen D. Crocker
>
> > The DDN community now includes hundreds of nodes and thousands of
> > users, but once it was all a gleam in Larry Roberts' eye. While much
> > of the development proceeded according to a grand plan, the design of
> > the protocols and the creation of the RFCs was largely accidental.
>
> Is this accidental nature of the design of protocols and
> invention of RFC's instrumental to the network being what
> it is today? Does this manner of creation from (perhaps)
> bottom-up reflect a fundamental difference from the way OSI has
> been designed from top-down?
During the initial development of the Arpanet, there was simply a
limit as to how far ahead anyone could see and manage. The IMPs were
placed in cooperative ARPA R&D sites with the hope that these research
sites would figure out how to exploit this new communication medium.
OSI efforts, on the other hand, were initiated after the Arpanet had
been around for a while, so everyone had some idea of what protocols
were all about. I suspect they viewed themselves as "finishing" the
design rather than beginning it. As it's turned out, we're a long way
from finished designing protocols. Both the underlying technology and
the appetite for new applications continue to expand, so the "end"
>
> > The procurement of the ARPANET was initiated in the summer of 1968 --
> > Remember Vietnam, flower children, etc? There had been prior
>
> Why is the summer of '68 connected to the procurement of the
> ARPANET? Can someone explain the significance of this? This is a
> very interesting statement and I would be interested if anyone
> has any understanding as to its meaning.
Summer of 1968 was when the procurement was initiated. There had been
earlier experiments and theorectical work in networking for several
years previously. The only explicit connection to the political
climate was the motivation to build networks that would survive
nuclear war.
The reference to "Vietnam, flower children, etc." was to help the
reader remember back to that time. Other than that, there wasn't any
specific reason to join those images with the Arpanet procurement.
> [...Sections deleted....]
>
> > To stimulate
> > this process, a meeting was called during the summer with
> > representatives from the selected sites, chaired by Elmer Shapiro
> > from SRI.... At this point we knew only that the network was
> > coming, but the precise details weren't known.
>
> The whole experimental nature of the ARPANET project was very
> important and crucial to the work that was being done. As such
> the "precise details" being unknown fit. What seemed to be the
> challenge and what problems were anticipated? Can anyone
> recommend someone to write to in order to find out more details?
Not sure what the question is. See Larry Roberts' paper in the 1970
SJCC proceedings for his view of what the net would be good for.
> > That first meeting was seminal. We had lots of questions -- how IMPs
>
> Could anyone further explain why this meeting was seminal? Was
> this a "first" meeting in that it was the first raising of such
> questions of the interconnection of computers as such? Was the
> Networking Working Group of such an importance in breaking ground?
Sometime prior to the issuance of the RFP in 1968, a decision had been
made to install the first four nodes of the Arpanet at UCLA, SRI, UCSB
and the University of Utah. I don't know who was consulted about the
decision; perhaps the heads of the projects at each site had been
consulted, or perhaps they had been told. I supsect they were fairly
cooperative and there had been some consultation. In any case, the
planning did not penetrate down to the insides of any of these
research groups until this meeting was called. At UCLA, where I was,
and at the other sites, the grad students, system programmers and
other staff members had had no contact with counterparts from the
other sites. This meeting initiated that contact. The meeting was
successful in the sense that it stimulated us to keep in contact and
formulate specific plans.
There had been much other work in thinking about interconnecting
computers together and in carrying out specific experiments, but there
wasn't any direct connection between that prior work and the
initiation of this series of meetings.
>
> > and hosts would be connected, what hosts would say to each other, and
> > what applications would be supported. No one had any answers, but
> > the prospects seemed exciting. We found ourselves imagining all
> > kinds of possibilities -- interactive graphics, cooperating
> > processes, automatic data base query, electronic mail -- but no one
> > knew where to begin.
>
> Is there any kind of notes or information (similar to an RFC)
> which might exist about this first meeting? It would be immensely
> interesting if more "artifacts" existed about the very beginnings
> of this all. What are other people's thoughts about this first
> meeting from the details in this RFC?
I don't know of any notes. It was a desultory meeting. Not much
focus, not much progress and not very long. The key result, in my
view, was meeting each other and discovering some resonance. More
chemistry than anything else.
Have to break off now; will continue responding to part 1 later.
Steve
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