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From: dboyes@titan.rice.edu (David Boyes)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Internet: The origins
Message-ID: <1990Oct21.221104.11211@rice.edu>
Date: 21 Oct 90 22:11:04 GMT
References: <4771@tahoe.unr.edu> <4773@tahoe.unr.edu> <4775@tahoe.unr.edu>
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In article <4775@tahoe.unr.edu> malc@tahoe.unr.edu (Malcolm L. Carlock) writes:
>>>In article <1990Oct14.055739.7971@nmt.edu> pefsnsr@jupiter.nmt.edu (Paul Ford) writes:
>>>[Internet to be administered by IBM, possibly due to Houston Chronicle
>>> trash?]
>>I think he's worth thumbing our collective noses at.  He can be the one who
>>IBM sends to the hundreds/thousands of universities and a wide variety of
>>private institutions to inform them of how IBM is going to commandeer their
>>Internet.

Excuse me, but let's keep our folklore straight. Merit, the current babysitter
of this fine collection of high-speed toys we call the NSFnet does a quite
good job. It might surprise you that Merit is a joint venture between IBM and
MCI. 

The article on the national network managment was in error, and they corrected it the 
next day. 

>Seriously, I wonder about the wisdom of handing over a (highly successful)
>network whose nature is nonproprietary over to a large and powerful entity
>who has, and will probably continue to have, a sizeable interest in its own
>proprietary networking strategies.

Sigh. See above. If anything, the association with the NSFnet has prompted
IBM to *open* up their networking strategies. NetView now groks SNMP -- 
something unheard of in the traditional IBM way of doing things. The current
NSFnet NSS switching units are controlled by NetView. Instead of bashing IBM,
lets encourage them to keep up the network glasnost.

>Douglas Comer's book "Internetworking with TCP/IP", from which I've plagiarized
>much of the above paragraph, talks further about the history of the Internet
>(and need for an Internet), and in greater detail.

Another good source are the early RFCs, eg. 1-about 350-400. nic.ddn.mil no
longer keeps them all on line, but you can get them restored by asking 
very nicely.


>Malcolm L. Carlock              Internet:  malc@unrvax.unr.edu


-- 
David Boyes  (dboyes@rice.edu)  "Reason not the need!" -- _King Lear_