IP: Some very nice words in the WSJ today about Jon Postel.

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

I know this is copyrighted but I think they will forgive me if I send this to IP.

                                                Dave
November 10, 1998

                  The Death of an Internet Pioneer
                  Closes Book on Net's Early Days

                  By ALLAN CARSCADDON 
                  Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION

                  THE TRANSFER of responsibility for the Internet's governance from
                  the U.S. government to the private sector can seem like a chaotic mess, a
                  brawl among stakeholders in the fractious Internet community and a horde
                  of officials from any number of governments. But historians removed from
                  the day-to-day battles will likely look back and mark one day as the most
                  important in the transition: Oct. 16, 1998.

                                             That was the day that Jon Postel, the
                                             director of the Internet Assigned
                                             Numbers Authority, or IANA, died of
                                             complications after heart surgery. To
                  historians, it may also be seen as the date the Internet stopped being the
                  place "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" (to borrow the title of the 1996
                  book by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon) and became a largely corporate
                  entity.

                  That's how important Mr. Postel was to the Internet.

                  Mr. Postel's death came just as he, acting as IANA's head, and a number
                  of other parties were trying to determine the form that IANA's successor
                  organization was to take. This new organization, the Internet Corporation
                  for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is envisioned as an
                  international, nonprofit private entity that will administer and coordinate the
                  assignment of domain names and Internet Protocol numbers, as well as
                  managing the various protocols that allow all of the millions of different
                  devices attached to the Internet to communicate and interoperate.

                  The creation of this new entity is itself an important and significant transition
                  in the development of the Internet. Those unique addresses and protocols
                  let every computer on the Internet identify every other computer and the
                  programs running on them, and anything that potentially affects those
                  addresses and protocols is significant. Certain things must be unique: If
                  your real-world address were exactly the same as another person's
                  address, but you each lived in a different house, the postal service wouldn't
                  know where to deliver the bills, personal letters, or other correspondence
                  that you receive. Without IANA's efforts -- soon to be undertaken by
                  ICANN -- the same thing could happen on the Net.

                  The creation of ICANN also marks the beginning of the Internet's life as a
                  non-governmental entity. This shift is significant, aimed at the creation of an
                  organization that will oversee the interconnection of private networks on a
                  global scale, without being beholden to a single narrow national interest.
                  The U.S., in effect, is releasing the governance of the Internet into the
                  public domain, where it will be managed by a new, non-nationalistic
                  organization. (It's an extraordinary step, and predictably, some in Congress
                  don't want to see it take place.)

                  Mr. Postel was deeply involved in this difficult process, working with
                  others on the bylaws and structure of the new organization. But then, he
                  was deeply involved in virtually every process crucial to the evolution of not
                  only the Internet but the ARPANET, the Defense Department network
                  from which the Internet emerged. On Oct. 7, just nine days before his
                  death, Mr. Postel was reporting to the House Committee on Sciences
                  Subcommittee on Technology on the efforts to form ICANN. He believed
                  the process was "going very well," and that when it was complete, the new
                  entity would "survive all of us, and contribute to the world after we are
                  gone."

                  Mr. Postel's status as head of IANA, his stature within the most senior of
                  the Internet's loose-knit engineering groups, and his legendary reluctance to
                  divulge any of the details of his personal life made him a cult figure in the
                  Internet community -- as well as focal point for the frustrations of critics
                  who didn't like the way the Internet has been managed. Such critics, many
                  of whom sprang from corporate America, probably didn't understand
                  someone who apparently stood with his hands at the controls of the
                  Internet and didn't use that power for personal gain.

                  In February, Mr. Postel's power was made apparent when he rerouted
                  most of the Internet's address system to one of his own computers. The
                  Internet address system has 13 root servers: Root server A, controlled by
                  Network Solutions Inc., is the master, with the other 12 taking their
                  direction in updating address lists from that server. What Mr. Postel did
                  was to e-mail the individual root-server operators, asking them to start
                  using one of his computers as the new master. The majority of operators
                  quickly complied.

                  Some called this action an attempt to hijack the Internet and a way for Mr.
                  Postel to flex his muscles as the debate continued about the future
                  successor to his IANA. Mr. Postel always insisted -- and I, for one,
                  believe him -- that his action was meant only as a test of the ability of the
                  Internet's name servers to be reconfigured without disrupting Internet
                  traffic. The test, incidentally, was a success.

                  In the furor that followed Mr. Postel's test, many people wondered why
                  people who run such important computers would change their
                  configurations just because Mr. Postel asked them to do so. The fact was
                  that Mr. Postel, who had quietly worked with the thousands of engineers of
                  the Internet Engineering Task Force to create the Internet, could do so
                  because everyone involved in the development of the Internet knew that his
                  strong sense of duty to the network wouldn't allow him to harm it -- the
                  Internet was in many ways his life's work.

                  Other critics came from the pool of politicians and international bureaucrats
                  who wanted to be able to control the process of creating the "new" IANA.
                  Their most common complaint was that the process of creating ICANN
                  and the bylaws governing it was a closed one. But that process was largely
                  the same process that was used to create all of the standards that knit the
                  Internet together: A draft was promulgated, comments on the draft were
                  received, and a new draft was issued. Internet engineers led by Mr. Postel
                  used that process to hammer out the details of how most everything from
                  e-mail to the domain-name system would work; they called such drafts
                  RFCs, or Requests for Comments. The ICANN bylaws can really be seen
                  as an RFC -- Jon Postel's final draft Internet standard.

                  Unfortunately, the behavior of people cannot be predicted as accurately as
                  the behavior of the electrons that transmit their data. Right up until the end
                  of his life, Jon Postel worked as an engineer putting together a network that
                  could potentially touch the lives of every person on the planet. Now that he
                  is gone, there is no one with his stature to play the same role. Other
                  wizards are still lurking on the Internet, working on new standards and
                  helping extend the network, but many of them are working from within
                  corporations, companies caught up in the gold rush of high-flying IPOs and
                  absurdly high market capitalizations, companies that see the Internet as a
                  network that can potentially get money from every person on the planet.

                  The death of Mr. Postel marks the end of the chapter on the early
                  development of the Internet. The formation of ICANN and the continued
                  emergence of corporate control over significant aspects of the Internet
                  point toward a future in which the Net will be a global network beyond the
                  control of national governments, and in which there will be increased
                  emphasis on the bottom line.

                  In this new environment, Mr. Postel seemed out of place at times. He
                  clearly did not share the get-rich-quick mentality of the Silicon Valley
                  venture capitalists, or the accidental monopoly opportunism of other
                  Internet groups. Although his work goes on at IANA, and soon at
                  ICANN, one of the questions that the new organization was already facing
                  was the role Mr. Postel should play. When he died, there were already
                  calls for him to end his involvement in ICANN after its creation was
                  complete. Apparently, some people had started to believe that the Internet
                  was too big for this wizard. Now, we have no choice but to find out.



                  Mr. Carscaddon is an experienced technology manager and partner at Technology
                  Decisions Consulting LLC. Write to him at Decisions Consulting LLC. Write to him at acarscaddon@techdec.com. 


The Death of an Internet Pioneer
Closes Book on Net's Early Days

By ALLAN CARSCADDON 
Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION

THE TRANSFER of responsibility for the Internet's governance from the U.S. government to the private sector can seem like a chaotic mess, a brawl among stakeholders in the fractious Internet community and a horde of officials from any number of governments. But historians removed from the day-to-day battles will likely look back and mark one day as the most important in the transition: Oct. 16, 1998.

That was the day that Jon Postel, the director of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or IANA, died of complications after heart surgery. To historians, it may also be seen as the date the Internet stopped being the place "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" (to borrow the title of the 1996 book by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon) and became a largely corporate entity.

That's how important Mr. Postel was to the Internet.

Mr. Postel's death came just as he, acting as IANA's head, and a number of other parties were trying to determine the form that IANA's successor organization was to take. This new organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is envisioned as an international, nonprofit private entity that will administer and coordinate the assignment of domain names and Internet Protocol numbers, as well as managing the various protocols that allow all of the millions of different devices attached to the Internet to communicate and interoperate.

The creation of this new entity is itself an important and significant transition in the development of the Internet. Those unique addresses and protocols let every computer on the Internet identify every other computer and the programs running on them, and anything that potentially affects those addresses and protocols is significant. Certain things must be unique: If your real-world address were exactly the same as another person's address, but you each lived in a different house, the postal service wouldn't know where to deliver the bills, personal letters, or other correspondence that you receive. Without IANA's efforts -- soon to be undertaken by ICANN -- the same thing could happen on the Net.

The creation of ICANN also marks the beginning of the Internet's life as a non-governmental entity. This shift is significant, aimed at the creation of an organization that will oversee the interconnection of private networks on a global scale, without being beholden to a single narrow national interest. The U.S., in effect, is releasing the governance of the Internet into the public domain, where it will be managed by a new, non-nationalistic organization. (It's an extraordinary step, and predictably, some in Congress don't want to see it take place.)

Mr. Postel was deeply involved in this difficult process, working with others on the bylaws and structure of the new organization. But then, he was deeply involved in virtually every process crucial to the evolution of not only the Internet but the ARPANET, the Defense Department network from which the Internet emerged. On Oct. 7, just nine days before his death, Mr. Postel was reporting to the House Committee on Sciences Subcommittee on Technology on the efforts to form ICANN. He believed the process was "going very well," and that when it was complete, the new entity would "survive all of us, and contribute to the world after we are gone."

Mr. Postel's status as head of IANA, his stature within the most senior of the Internet's loose-knit engineering groups, and his legendary reluctance to divulge any of the details of his personal life made him a cult figure in the Internet community -- as well as focal point for the frustrations of critics who didn't like the way the Internet has been managed. Such critics, many of whom sprang from corporate America, probably didn't understand someone who apparently stood with his hands at the controls of the Internet and didn't use that power for personal gain.

In February, Mr. Postel's power was made apparent when he rerouted most of the Internet's address system to one of his own computers. The Internet address system has 13 root servers: Root server A, controlled by Network Solutions Inc., is the master, with the other 12 taking their direction in updating address lists from that server. What Mr. Postel did was to e-mail the individual root-server operators, asking them to start using one of his computers as the new master. The majority of operators quickly complied.

Some called this action an attempt to hijack the Internet and a way for Mr. Postel to flex his muscles as the debate continued about the future successor to his IANA. Mr. Postel always insisted -- and I, for one, believe him -- that his action was meant only as a test of the ability of the Internet's name servers to be reconfigured without disrupting Internet traffic. The test, incidentally, was a success.

In the furor that followed Mr. Postel's test, many people wondered why people who run such important computers would change their configurations just because Mr. Postel asked them to do so. The fact was that Mr. Postel, who had quietly worked with the thousands of engineers of the Internet Engineering Task Force to create the Internet, could do so because everyone involved in the development of the Internet knew that his strong sense of duty to the network wouldn't allow him to harm it -- the Internet was in many ways his life's work.

Other critics came from the pool of politicians and international bureaucrats who wanted to be able to control the process of creating the "new" IANA. Their most common complaint was that the process of creating ICANN and the bylaws governing it was a closed one. But that process was largely the same process that was used to create all of the standards that knit the Internet together: A draft was promulgated, comments on the draft were received, and a new draft was issued. Internet engineers led by Mr. Postel used that process to hammer out the details of how most everything from e-mail to the domain-name system would work; they called such drafts RFCs, or Requests for Comments. The ICANN bylaws can really be seen as an RFC -- Jon Postel's final draft Internet standard.

Unfortunately, the behavior of people cannot be predicted as accurately as the behavior of the electrons that transmit their data. Right up until the end of his life, Jon Postel worked as an engineer putting together a network that could potentially touch the lives of every person on the planet. Now that he is gone, there is no one with his stature to play the same role. Other wizards are still lurking on the Internet, working on new standards and helping extend the network, but many of them are working from within corporations, companies caught up in the gold rush of high-flying IPOs and absurdly high market capitalizations, companies that see the Internet as a network that can potentially get money from every person on the planet.

The death of Mr. Postel marks the end of the chapter on the early development of the Internet. The formation of ICANN and the continued emergence of corporate control over significant aspects of the Internet point toward a future in which the Net will be a global network beyond the control of national governments, and in which there will be increased emphasis on the bottom line.

In this new environment, Mr. Postel seemed out of place at times. He clearly did not share the get-rich-quick mentality of the Silicon Valley venture capitalists, or the accidental monopoly opportunism of other Internet groups. Although his work goes on at IANA, and soon at ICANN, one of the questions that the new organization was already facing was the role Mr. Postel should play. When he died, there were already calls for him to end his involvement in ICANN after its creation was complete. Apparently, some people had started to believe that the Internet was too big for this wizard. Now, we have no choice but to find out.

Mr. Carscaddon is an experienced technology manager and partner at Technology Decisions Consulting LLC. Write to him at Mr. Carscaddon is an experienced technology manager and partner at Technology Decisions Consulting LLC. Write to him at acarscaddon@techdec.com.