[IP] more on Setting history straight: So, who really did invent the Internet?
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bjørn Vermo <bv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 3, 2005 5:08:22 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, ip <ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Setting history straight: So, who really
did invent the Internet?
On Mon, 02 May 2005 18:49:54 +0200, Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
------- Original message -------
From: Mike O'Dell <mo@xxxxxxx>
Sent: 2/5/'05, 9:36
...
I was particularly taken by the comments about how it might still
be "the internet" if done with X.25 or ATM.
sorry - but that could not be, other than as some grandios
technological
edifice. those "telco" technologies were created specifically to
provide
for central planning and control of innovation (aka "new services").
the power of that control can be seen in how successfully ISDN was
crushed in the US. In that world, "new services" (not necessarily
innovative) are doled out by the network operators, in concert with
their handmaiden equipment providers, on geologic time scales.
In some circles, a myth about the badness of X.25 has grown more or
less unchallenged. Like most myths, it is spread by those with no
firsthand experience. The truth is that the Internet was built in
most places with lines leased from companies which were every bit as
centralized as and often identical to the providers of X.25
connections. It is not the bottom three layers of the OSI model that
makes or breaks internetworking, it is what you put on top of it and
how you make a culture to deal with and access it.
It is true that X.25 was effectively killed in the US, just as ISDN
was, by the operators who pandered to high-volume analog telephone
users to the detriment of any kind of digital service. I never quite
understood the logic behind it, but from the outside it looked like
somebody had over-invested in copper cables and analog switches and
were unwilling to admit it. X.21 was never even implemented in the US
to my knowledge, but Canada had a line switched network for a while.
In other countries, it was cost-effective to use both packet
switching and line switching even at monopoly prices. We made all
kinds of hybrid internetworking. Much of it was a set of really ugly
kludges, but innovation and creativity were certainly not stifled by
using infrastructure provided by rigid monopolies. On the contrary,
finding new ways to route information more cheaply by using different
underlying services in different countries and areas led to a large
number of innovative gateways. Given time, it is quite reasonable to
think that a unified worldwide internet could have evolved from it.
It would probably have been a network with less centralized control
than the Internet we have today.
Nor is a totally unfettered and individualistic approach to
networking guaranteed to further innovation. Look at Fidonet - it was
a hobbyist approach to networking, but was so religious about the
smallest common denominator that it hardly evolved.
--
-bv
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