Slashdot Mirror

Is it just me, or is assuring the quality of open source projects (both in terms of openness and functionality) more or less impossible? I mean, by its nature, open source holds no associations to any governing bodies that carry sway. There's the argument that accepted standards organizations for open source just don't exist, but that's not even true...it's more a case of public trust being a fickle thing.

Industries that market tangible products have no problems creating standardization bureaus and bodies, usually because these sorts of things can be governed in turn by governments, by qualified authorities, by laws. Could the FCC have been created without respected, universally trusted leadership? Doubtful. Who then will take on the challenge of developing an overseer for open-source?

It has been tried...there are any number of open-source websites that act as collectives for development. There have been attempts to create instituions of authority as well, notably the group led by Eric S. Raymond, the Open Source Initiative, which has had undetermined effectiveness, as far as i can tell. Still, i can't help but think that, currently, excellent open source becomes accepted by reputation, and reputation alone.

I wonder if this lab will have the power to start the responsible monitoring of open source...just an interesting idea. Really, do we even need such a system, or can the open Freshmeat bazaar and word of mouth serve as adequate testing grounds? Sometimes i think it would take an organization with direct influence over the net, like the IETF or ISOC to get the ball rolling...from innovators to watchdogs.

If anyone else knows of any other certitification programs for open source, i'd like to hear about them.

-j

I think there's definitely a need for computer historians. They probably belong in Universities (I don't know whether it would be in the CS or the History department, though). It's not because computer science is such a young field that there aren't some interesting questions to be studied yet.

Possible areas of study include:

• The genesis of the computer. Is it the brain-child of a few brilliant genii such as Babbage, Turing and von Neumann, or is it "an idea whose time was ripe"?
• The development of programming languages. Is there some trend of evolution there? The fact that such an advanced language as Lisp is, actually, one of the oldest, is a delicate thing to explain.
• The history of the Internet. And the puzzling question: why was TCP/IP such a success and OSI such a failure? I think Cerf, Postel &co deserve much the same popularity as Gutenberg, and they are far from it. Maybe the Internet Society should open a working group on the history of the Internet.
• The history of operating systems. This is the strangest of all. It started in chaos; then wars raged; and now it is evolving toward uniformity.

"As a Senator, he introduced legislation which expanded investment in research networks, such as the NSFNET. "

a quote from hobbes internet timeline from 1986. "NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps) NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh, SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC, Theory Center@Cornell). This allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities."

As you'll notice from the timeline, DARPANET was brought on-line in 1979, well before Gore had a chance to vote on anything even remotly related to it. Yes, he approved funding for a 56k backbone , but that's hardly pioneering work.

From the little information I have, CERN was started about 1976. Work On ARPANET began in the 60's, and in 1970, the first publication of the Host to Host protocol was published. Later, that year, there was the "[f]irst cross-country link installed by AT&T between UCLA and BBN at 56kbps. This line is later replaced by another between BBN and RAND. A second line is added between MIT and Utah" (Hobbes' Internet Timeline). According to this, CERNET was around in 1976ish. In 1971, ARPANET had 15 node and 23 hosts. The WWW is only a subset of the internet. While I can't disprove the CERN claim of WWW, I do know WWW did not take off until you had browsers. That is all I know, and I admit it isn't much.

1. Running the root name servers but as I understand it Network Solutions are still actually doing that under contract - and, they're only a few, relatively small, servers - they don't cost a million a year to administer
2. Resolving disputes but ICANN have contracted that out too. And you ought to be able to make money from that.

3. So let me get this straight. ICANN need US$4.3 million per year to do what Jon Postel used to do in his spare time, for free? Nice work if you can get it. I see we're going to have some fun in Yokohama this summer...

Without criticizing Geekcorp's intent or integrity, I want to point out organisations who have been doing this and more to assist not-for-profit NGOs and humanitarian groups for years. Most people know the story - this technology represents to many groups in developing or strife-torn countries the cheapest (and sometimes the safest) way of communicating to the outside world.

The APC has been assisting communication, networking and training in developing countries for well over 10 years.

Especially in Africa, people such as Karen Banks (amongst many others) from GreenNet have been working with African groups with internetworking (or UUCP/Fidonet when the comms infra has not been available or appropriate) for many years.

Also, ISOC (Internet Society) have a sustainable education/training project open to all in developing countries.

There is little sign on the Geekcorps' site that they are aware of these and many other efforts (except for AOL), but I would hope that communication with these groups would further their goals through coordination of efforts (or at least of being aware of what others have been doing for many years before them).

shine brightly

.anom (ex peg.apc.org, ex ISOC chapter director)

Without criticizing Geekcorp's intent or integrity, I want to point out organisations who have been doing this and more to assist not-for-profit NGOs and humanitarian groups for years. Most people know the story - this technology represents to many groups in developing or strife-torn countries the cheapest (and sometimes the safest) way of communicating to the outside world.

The APC has been assisting communication, networking and training in developing countries for well over 10 years.

Especially in Africa, people such as Karen Banks (amongst many others) from GreenNet have been working with African groups with internetworking (or UUCP/Fidonet when the comms infra has not been available or appropriate) for many years.

Also, ISOC (Internet Society) have a sustainable education/training project open to all in developing countries.

There is little sign on the Geekcorps' site that they are aware of these and many other efforts (except for AOL), but I would hope that communication with these groups would further their goals through coordination of efforts (or at least of being aware of what others have been doing for many years before them).

shine brightly

.anom (ex peg.apc.org, ex ISOC chapter director)

Vinton Cerf (the "father" of the Internet, perhaps even without the quotes) is constantly talking about Internet in space, interplanetary Internet and so on. For example, in his celebrated essay (an Internet draft) "The Internet is for Everyone" (now the official motto of the ISOC), he writes:

"The Internet is moving off the planet. Already, an interplanetary Internet is part of the NASA Mars mission program now under way at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. By 2008 we should have a well-functioning Earth-Mars network that serves as the nascent backbone of an interplanetary system of Internets: InterPlaNet is a network of Internets. Ultimately, we will have interplanetary Internet relays in polar solar orbit so that such relays can see most of the planets and their interplanetary gateways for most if not all of the time."

To be quite honest, if I didn't have so much admiration for him, I would say that Vint is going just a bit off his rocker, there. But, who cares? The idea is fun, and if a man can't dream, what's left for him to do?

Did you know it, the ISOC has even formed an "Interplanetary International Special Interest Group" (IPNSIG).

--
David A. Madore (ISOC member)

The Computer Museum's Computer History Timeline has a lot more detail.

Of course, for Internet history, there's Hobbes' Internet Timeline, and of course Charles Spurgeon's Ethernet Web Site (not focused on the Internet, but a major bit of networking history).

I was going to take your points one by one and dispute them, but there have been others that have done a wonderful job of pointing out the obvious. Instead, I decided to dismiss you're point of view as clearly uninformed and lacking critical thought.

The only thing I ask is that you please go here: http://www.isoc.org/zakon/Inter net/History/HIT.html to gain a better understanding of MSs lack of influence on anything internet. Please pay close attention to the fact that MSs started their company in the 70s when the internet was hitting it's stride and did nothing, nada, zipo, null-set, bupkiss, zilch, to help, grow, open, dominate, or sqelch the internet untill 2 decades later when a small start-up in Mtn. View threatened to take over their position as the primary development platform.
_______________

Network Startup Resource Center is a good starting point for exploring Internet prolifaration in the developing word - in many cases the information is outdated, because the local Internet grew too much to keep pace with. There was number promoting, funding and training activities to help Internet development in poor countries. Check out NSRC workshop page, Internet Society Network Technology Workshop, and other activities, UNDP's SDNP Programme, Soros Foundation Internet Project, AfNOG page and others.

Some of these activites explicitely aim at Internet accessible to general public (with programs supporting Internet in education, public Internet kiosks etc), but in general the idea is the more networking the better. Frankly, the discussion whether Internet creates new division lines between information haves and have-nots etc sounds a bit pretentious and academic if the only alternative is equality in isolation and poverty. Personally I know a lot of people from developing countries, to whom even very limited Internet presence brough enormous benefits in both knowledge and better living, and that's a good thing. Period.

Honza Jirousek

I think it's time to set the record straight on this Al Gore thing. Mr Gore does not, nor has he ever, claimed to invent the internet. What Al Gore claims (and rightly so) is that while he was in the senate he was influenced heavily by a report (see this for details)that made him believe in and become a major proponent of the internet. While in the senate he helped to pass a number of bills in support of ARPANET.

More info see:
Internet Pioneers
Wired News
The Slashdot story
This doesn't mean I'm voting for Gore btw, no political endorsements

Some general comments on this story: I don't think it's a well-done story, in that it only covers the last century; on the other hand it doesn't pretend to be the whole millenium but actually is just the century. I think they leave out lots of critical disasters, like the great depression, but put things that had almost no impact on societys (N-Rays??? Who cares?) They also leave out the invention of nuclear weapons, World War II and the Holocaust (How do you miss that?) and add things like wrong way corrigan, which are more humorous than they are true failures. All in all a halfhearted attempt, but not a bad read.

Then there was a long hiatus in the mid to late 1980s during which all the networking players tried to push proprietary PC LANs on everybody. During this period, TCP/IP was considered sort of a wierdo protocol used in academia and the military. The LAN wars continued for years, until only Novell and Microsoft were left standing. Meanwhile, the UNIX workstation crowd clanked along, mostly using TCP/IP (there were exceptions, notably Apollo), incompatible with the PC world.

It wasn't until Windows 3.1 that TCP/IP started to make serious inroads into the PC world, and the commercialization of the Internet got going. The rest is history.

One of the first widely used TCP/IP stacks was an open source stack by Phil Karn, the famous K9AQ stack, developed for packet ham radio. Among other things, it's the guts of MacTCP, once Apple's official TCP/IP stack. It may have influenced more implementations than BSD, especially since it was a long time before you could freely use the BSD code. Early BSD versions required a UNIX license from AT&T, and that license cost roughly $20,000 per CPU for non-academic sites.

UNIX isn't the world.

The false perception that internetworking is something new is forcing companies to concentrate on 'position position position' instead of actually applying the tech to make a buck.

I'm sure I'm not alone, being stuck in a meeting with someone who doesn't understand the value of a network. Someone who, when describing the internet uses words like "exciting" and "new". (reminds me of the old loveboat theme:).

When you find yourself in a meeting with someone who has seen one to many .com advertisements and wants pie in the sky things out of your network, use these little tools to deflate there position and keep them grounded in reality and out of the hype high.

1) Bring several printouts of Hobbes' Internet Timeline to the meeting and let them take it home to read.

2) Use the term 'Internetworking' instead of internet to illustrate that this isn't anything new.

3) Point out this is an evolution of many high minded ideas and compromises that have evolved internetworking to where it is today.

4) Point out the many protocols that have run over IP, each proclaiming themselves to be the new new thing.

I have found these tools to be both educational and informative on many occasions, and it helps bring the discussion down to a real world level where real work can be done. So the next time you find yourself in a meeting with 'consultant-of-the-week'. I hope you find these tools useful.

_____________________________________

Check out this page about public key stuff.

It uses public and private keys (like PGP does)...

You encrypt a one-way hash of the confirmation message with your private key. The one-way hash results in a number that's a couple bytes long that represents the message you're sending. If you put your name and date in the confirmation message, someone can't just copy the letter and put their name in (or just alter the date) because that'd make the message result in a different hash. They can't correct the hash because it's encrypted with your private key, which (hopefully) nobody but you knows. Everyone can read the message by decrypting it with your public key, which proves again that you signed it.

Guess most /.'ers are newbies in comparison

David Off

If you are interested in this stuff, look at The history of the Internet for fuller details. But the basic story is that the idea of packet-based networks arose independently in two places. The first was Kleinrock et al at MIT, the second was Baran at RAND. The former group was interested in them as a way of efficiently sharing the same lines between many different computers. The latter was interested in them for creating communication systems that could survive nuclear war. The two groups did not know of each other.

The Internet arose out of ARPANET which was based on the work at MIT. The goal was to allow computer resources at different research institutions with different types of computers to be shared. The fact that surviving nuclear war was not a goal can be seen in the fact that the machinery used to set it up had no protection against the electro-magnetic effects of a nuclear warhead. Furthermore the initial set-up heavily relied upon a single back-bone. With no redundancy in your physical network, what good is a redundant protocol?

In fact the initial proof of concept and then proposal for ARPANET was made before the MIT people even heard of the work at RAND. Indeed the two groups found out about each other at a conference where the ARPANET was being proposed. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself!

Cheers,
Ben Tilly

If you are interested in this stuff, look at The history of the Internet for fuller details. But the basic story is that the idea of packet-based networks arose independently in two places. The first was Kleinrock et al at MIT, the second was Baran at RAND. The former group was interested in them as a way of efficiently sharing the same lines between many different computers. The latter was interested in them for creating communication systems that could survive nuclear war. The two groups did not know of each other.

The Internet arose out of ARPANET which was based on the work at MIT. The goal was to allow computer resources at different research institutions with different types of computers to be shared. The fact that surviving nuclear war was not a goal can be seen in the fact that the machinery used to set it up had no protection against the electro-magnetic effects of a nuclear warhead. Furthermore the initial set-up heavily relied upon a single back-bone. With no redundancy in your physical network, what good is a redundant protocol?

In fact the initial proof of concept and then proposal for ARPANET was made before the MIT people even heard of the work at RAND. Indeed the two groups found out about each other at a conference where the ARPANET was being proposed. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself!

Cheers,
Ben Tilly

What do ./ers think? Would you like to see international policy development undertaken by the United Nations towards developing international principles that would enhance the security of global information and telecommunications systems and help to combat information terrorism and criminality? Or is this something that the Internet Society should be doing? I note that Vint Cerf is promoting the idea of a Law of Cyberspace, similar to the existing United Nations Law of the Sea.

My feeling is that like it or not, future skirmishes will be fought on a digital battleground, and governments will need to cooperate to fight cyber-terrorism.

-- Paul Gillingwater

The first issue (unsolicited free emailaccounts accessible to all) isn't so much a security thing (after all, anyone can create an email pretending to be me from a free email service anyway) as it is a matter of trust.

NSI continues to show that it's not worthy of that trust. The data that was entrusted to them for technical and administrative purposes, is now a source of income for NSI, who are also denying others the right to do the same.

The terms of being registered with NSI, which at the time I registered my domains still had the monopoly, have been changing constantly.

If anyone can recommend a registry that will allow me to keep control of my data, please step forward. I want that control back.

NSI has shown that it's not worthy of our trust. NSI can't be and shouldn't be trusted. Not by the US Department of Commerce, not by ICANN, and not by Internet users in general.
--

We couldn't possibly celebrate the Internet's 30th birthday without a link to some Internet history stuff now could we... (it's the ISOC's).

right here. The first entry is 1957, and there's no reference to "Gore" until 1991. There's another reference for the year 1993, but this only refers to the e-mail address of the vice president at the Whitehouse. Someone ought to tell the author of this timeline that Gore isn't getting anywhere near the credit he deserves.

Oh...wait...yes he is.