[8624] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: RFC1000 (End of response to part 1)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen D Crocker)
Sat Nov 27 14:34:53 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 14:33:31 -0500
From: Stephen D Crocker <crocker@tis.com>
-----BEGIN PRIVACY-ENHANCED MESSAGE-----
Proc-Type: 4,MIC-CLEAR
Content-Domain: RFC822
Originator-ID-Asymmetric: MFMxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMQswCQYDVQQIEwJNRDE
kMCIGA1UEChMbVHJ1c3RlZCBJbmZvcm1hdGlvbiBTeXN0ZW1zMREwDwYDVQQLEwh
HbGVud29vZA==,03
MIC-Info: RSA-MD5,RSA,QJfDTV57PLd8y3JZ8cbDVdCKReYcPnvKCXXHwZ8NjvJ
95rIqu79rZBCUVr6bBEhZQGoqnRfEvOpsdfjnbABuFQBjfedesmIrOy49TFzVYcr
Js9i9ReMsq1UglXsFamH7
Continuing with my response to part 1...
In response to:
> 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 said I didn't know of any notes. I thought about it a bit more. I
believe Shapiro came into the meeting with a page of questions. I
don't know if he made a report on the meeting. Perhaps he, SRI or the
NTIC has a copy.
> > We weren't sure whether there was really room
> > to think hard about these problems; surely someone from the east
> > would be along by and by to bring the word.
>
> So the NWG in the West consisted of graduate students. This line
> seems to hit at some untold expectations they had. Is there any
> way to recreate the times? In order to fully understand how the
> development of the ARPANET, NCP and then TCP/IP, it would be
> important to best understand the very beginnings of the
> development - which is why I am posting these questions. Does
> anyone have any further references that they could suggest? How
> available are the early RFCs? Also, why were graduate students
> picked to develop the earliest protocols for the ARPANET and not
> BBN or other possibilities?
I'm not sure I understand your comment or question; can you clarify?
I'm not sure about the avilability of the early RFCs. The NIC at SRI
archived them. Jon Postel at ISI has also kept most of them, I think.
To say graduate students were picked to develop the protocols puts the
wrong perspective on the situation. I don't think protocols figured
very prominently in anyone's mind at that time. BBN won the contract
to develop and deploy the packet-switching technology. Neither the
RFC nor their proposal defined either the hardware or the software
interface; those came later during the contract. With no specific
service definition in place for what the IMPs were providing to the
hosts, there wasn't any clear idea of what work the hosts had to do.
Only later did we articulate the notion of building a layered set of
protocols with general transport services on the bottom and multiple
application-specific protocols on the top. More precisely, we
understood quite early that we wanted quite a bit of generality, but
we didn't have a clear idea how to achieve it. We struggled between a
grand design and getting something working quickly.
Why grad students? UCLA, UCSB and Utah were universities; grad
students are the ones that do the work. (Not completely true, of
course. There are some very fine staff people, and occasionally a
professor digs into that level of stuff.) Also, at SRI, some of the
staff people, e.g. Jeff Rulifson, were also Stanford grad students.
>
> > But we did come to one conclusion: We ought to meet again.
> > Over the next several months, we managed to parlay that idea
> > into a series of exchange meetings at each of our sites,
> > thereby setting the most important precedent in protocol design.
>
> What was the precedent? Was it the idea that protocol design is
> best facilitated by meetings between various sites? Could
> someone further explain this, as I want to understand the importance.
The "precedent" comment was tongue in cheek. I was referring to
traveling. For young grad students, the opportunity to travel to
other sites was both educational and fun. It was mildly ironic that
the business of building networks -- which is aimed at facilitating
cooperation with distant places without the need for travel -- should
itself have required so much travel.
>
> > The first few meetings were quite tenuous. We had no official
> > charter. Most of us were graduate students and we expected that a
> > professional crew would show up eventually to take over the problems
> > we were dealing with. Without clear definition of what the host-IMP
> > interface would look like, or even what functions the IMP would
> > provide, we focused on exotic ideas. We envisioned the possibility
>
> Ditto on my questioning how and why the Network Working Group was
> organized and what their (the members of the NWG) expectations
> were, and what ARPA's expectations were for the formation of the
> group. Could anyone explain why no professional crew showed up?
As I said above, there wasn't any clear perception that there needed
to be an organized set of protocols. Speaking for myself, I didn't
know that ARPA didn't know this, so I imagined ARPA might assign this
work to someone.
I should emphasize again that the focus of attention was on the nuts
and bolts of getting the IMPs and phone lines in place and making the
subnet work. This was much harder tehn than it is now. The phone
company was not used to supplying leased 50 (not 56!) kilobit lines.
It took up to 9 months to get a line installed. The box contining the
modems was about the size of a refrigerator. As I understand it,
these modems spliced together a bunch of voice grade lines to
achieve the desired bandwidth. Digital trunks were rare. Also, the
regulatory setting was different. AT&T had not been broken up. Lines
were ordered through AT&T Long Lines. They worked with each of the
operating companies. Getting a line installed that cross from one
operating company to another was one matter; getting a line installed
entirely within the territory of a single operating company was
another. Unlike today, the phone company was not used to these
transactions, and they had to be nursed along. I believe ARPA did
this directly.
There were lots of other issues, large and small, that took time to
sort out. A grad design for protocols just wasn't obvious or central
to the planning at ARPA.
>
> [...deletion of DEL:Decode-Encode Lang. and NIL:Network Interchange Lang...]
>
> > In February of 1969 we met for the first time with BBN. I don't
> > think any of us were prepared for that meeting. The BBN folks, led
> > by Frank Heart, Bob Kahn, Severo Ornstein and Will Crowther, found
> > themselves talking to a crew of graduate students they hadn't
> > anticipated. And we found ourselves talking to people whose first
> > concern was how to get bits to flow quickly and reliably but hadn't
> > -- of course -- spent any time considering the thirty or forty layers
> > of protocol above the link level. And while BBN didn't take over the
> > protocol design process, we kept expecting that an official protocol
> > design team would announce itself.
>
> Again - the question of what each groups (NWG, BBN) goals and
> expectations are very fuzzy. Is there any way to stab into this
> darkness to get a better understanding of how things were
> operated and created to do all this?
Not sure what more there is to say. Things were indeed fuzzy.
Everyone was well intentioned and enthusiastic. Various parties got
together, talked, identified issues, and formulated plans and solutions.
>
> > A month later, after a particularly delightful meeting in Utah, it
> > became clear to us that we had better start writing down our
> > discussions.
>
> Does anyone know which meeting this refers to and why it was
> "particularly delightful"? It is important to note that as a
> result of this meeting RFCs were developed, but the delight must
> have the cause that made the creation of RFCs necessary.
The meeting was delightful because it felt productive and we enjoyed
the interactions with each other. We had chewed the fat on various
ideas at our earlier meetings. At this meeting we made assignments to
ourselves and agreed we'd better write our thoughts down. I took on
the minor task of writing a cover memo for the notes which established
our procedures.
I don't remember the precise date of the meeting, but I'm prettu sure
it was in the spring of 1969. The Babbage Institute has been writing
a history of the Arpanet; they probably have this kind of detail along
with much, much more. Perhaps they even have a record of the meeting
which Shapiro chaired.
Part 2 next.
Steve
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Steve Crocker | Voice: 301-854-6889 |
| Trusted Information Systems | FAX: 301-854-5363 |
| 3060 Washington Road (Route 97) |-------------------------------|
| Glenwood, MD 21738 | Internet: crocker@tis.com |
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
-----END PRIVACY-ENHANCED MESSAGE-----
