The Founder of the Internet

Kent W. England

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Jul 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM7/24/96

to Zheng Wang, big-in...@munnari.oz.au

At 05:04 PM 7/24/96 +0100, Zheng Wang wrote:
>In the article "Boost for Internet Telephony" in the July 15 issue of
>CommunicationsWeek International, Vinton Cerf was referred as the
>"co-founder of the Internet".
>
>Cheers
>Zheng
>
>
>

Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn deserve credit for the key idea behind the Internet,
which is that a virtual internet (or catenet as it was first called) can
stitch together many disparate network technologies and the resulting whole
will be greater than the sum of its parts. (ATM bigots need to remember this
last point.) The success of the Internet (as opposed to the Web) is almost
entirely due to this concatenation principle, something entirely missing
from any network technology up to that time.

Tim Berners-Lee deserves credit for taking the abstract concept of hypertext
and turning it into a practical reality. (Ted Nelson was never happy with
the compromises that Tim Berners-Lee happily accepted.) The Web made the
Internet "point and click" which was already a successful model for personal
computing. The success of the Web is almost entirely due to this very simple
and practical model. I think Marc Andreeson deserves a lot of credit for the
GUI web browser and the concept of giving away well done code.

And I don't forget Bob Metcalfe's contribution of Ethernet. Treating a wire
like wireless technology was counter-intuitive, brilliant and successful.
Truly "plug and play".

There is plenty of credit to go around appropriately. Maybe we need an
Internet Hall of Fame to get this all straight?

--Kent

Zheng Wang

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Jul 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM7/24/96

to id caa22780, thu

Robert Moskowitz

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Jul 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM7/24/96

to Zheng Wang, id maa05886, wed

At 05:04 PM 7/24/96 +0100, Zheng Wang wrote:

After all, Vint is just the "father of the Internet". Who is the mother? ;)

Boy are we busy digging holes this summer!

Robert Moskowitz
Chrysler Corporation
(810) 758-8212

George Michaelson

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Jul 25, 1996, 3:00:00 AM7/25/96

to id wa13789, thu

There is plenty of credit to go around appropriately. Maybe we need an
Internet Hall of Fame to get this all straight?

If we're going to have a hall of fame, get Bob Dylan to play at the
opening and give Robert Zimmerman a special award for inventing the
7 layer model. Then find the people who converted a teaching/comparison
tool into religious mania and line them up against the wall...

[this is a joke. If you don't know why, then you don't get invited.]

-George

--
George Michaelson | connect.com.au pty/ltd
Email: g...@connect.com.au | c/o AAPT,
Phone: +61 7 3834 9976 | level 8, the Riverside Centre,
Fax: +61 7 3834 9908 | 123 Eagle St, Brisbane QLD 4000

George Michaelson

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Jul 26, 1996, 3:00:00 AM7/26/96

to big-in...@munnari.oz.au

If we're going to have a hall of fame, get Bob Dylan to play at the
opening and give Robert Zimmerman a special award for inventing the
7 layer model. Then find the people who converted a teaching/comparison
tool into religious mania and line them up against the wall...

[this is a joke. If you don't know why, then you don't get invited.]

And as Christian Huitema kindly pointed out in Private, the man is Hubert
and not Robert so as usual, the jokes on me. Two letter slip onto a bananaskin.

Sorry...