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You're so right, good thing the internet (created by a people at a government institution) exists for us to have this discussion.

johngalt 16y ago
That's like saying the government is responsible for all business because they printed the money. The "internet" that the government created would be nothing without the private organizations that actually built it. When did the government start Cisco? Google? USR? Even the early iterations of the internet were built by private companies. It's more that the government was the first buyer of this type of technology. Edit: The idea that the government can take responsibility for the internet is gigantic hubris. In fact it's governments that are continuing to destroy what the internet has become.
- borism 16y ago
  can you name private organizations that were involved in ARPANET build-up?
  - johngalt 16y ago
    BBN is the most well known. Additionally a lot of the early gear was produced by DEC and IBM. ARPANET didn't resemble anything close to the internet in it's current incarnation. Thank the government that you have a macbook to use, because they built ENIAC!
    - borism 16y ago
      umm, so subcontractors to the government/academia? sure there were a lot of those. Still, for more than 20 years during 1970-90s private sector largely discarded ARPANet mutating into Internet as an academic toy. All while TCP/IP was invented by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn at Stanford and HTML by Tim Berners Lee at CERN. Yup, two largely government-funded organisations again.
Radix 16y ago
I try to avoid sarcasm in comments. It seems like one is packing more meaning into a short comment, but without knowing a person or body language the comment is often unclear. Here I think you meant your comment as a final unavoidable contradiction to the GPs post, but I recall reading some lore on a father of the internet steering the RFC process while a government branch was working on another standard meant to be primary. (I'd look it up but I'm on my mobile.) So I doubt we can say it was more the government institution rather than the will of the builders which led to the internet which is more in line with the GP and doesn't take away from the idea that their positions made their work possible.
- locopati 16y ago
  I agree with you that in the end, it comes back to individuals and their decisions. However, many of those individuals were working in an environment afforded them by a government institution, either directly (working for DARPA) or indirectly (working for educational institutions supported by the government). But, really, I was responding to the parent's 'By contrast, not as many examples of [institutions] creating it.' The environment provided by institutions (whether it's a small company or a large facility) have created a great many things throughout history. We all want to think individuals are what it's all about, but individuals don't exist outside their surroundings and influences.

johngalt 16y ago

That's like saying the government is responsible for all business because they printed the money. The "internet" that the government created would be nothing without the private organizations that actually built it. When did the government start Cisco? Google? USR? Even the early iterations of the internet were built by private companies. It's more that the government was the first buyer of this type of technology. Edit: The idea that the government can take responsibility for the internet is gigantic hubris. In fact it's governments that are continuing to destroy what the internet has become.

borism 16y ago
can you name private organizations that were involved in ARPANET build-up?
- johngalt 16y ago
  BBN is the most well known. Additionally a lot of the early gear was produced by DEC and IBM. ARPANET didn't resemble anything close to the internet in it's current incarnation. Thank the government that you have a macbook to use, because they built ENIAC!
  - borism 16y ago
    umm, so subcontractors to the government/academia? sure there were a lot of those. Still, for more than 20 years during 1970-90s private sector largely discarded ARPANet mutating into Internet as an academic toy. All while TCP/IP was invented by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn at Stanford and HTML by Tim Berners Lee at CERN. Yup, two largely government-funded organisations again.

Radix 16y ago

I try to avoid sarcasm in comments. It seems like one is packing more meaning into a short comment, but without knowing a person or body language the comment is often unclear. Here I think you meant your comment as a final unavoidable contradiction to the GPs post, but I recall reading some lore on a father of the internet steering the RFC process while a government branch was working on another standard meant to be primary. (I'd look it up but I'm on my mobile.) So I doubt we can say it was more the government institution rather than the will of the builders which led to the internet which is more in line with the GP and doesn't take away from the idea that their positions made their work possible.

locopati 16y ago
I agree with you that in the end, it comes back to individuals and their decisions. However, many of those individuals were working in an environment afforded them by a government institution, either directly (working for DARPA) or indirectly (working for educational institutions supported by the government). But, really, I was responding to the parent's 'By contrast, not as many examples of [institutions] creating it.' The environment provided by institutions (whether it's a small company or a large facility) have created a great many things throughout history. We all want to think individuals are what it's all about, but individuals don't exist outside their surroundings and influences.