5 ms·

I remember this being debated already in the 1990s, when the press wanted to start writing "internet". I think it's still the Internet (proper noun) and nothing

by kennu 6y ago

I remember this being debated already in the 1990s, when the press wanted to start writing "internet". I think it's still the Internet (proper noun) and nothing has essentially changed since then.

ghaff 6y ago
The main explanation, which the article does mention, is that there's a tendency to capitalize novel terms: Big Data, Open Source, the World Wide Web, the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, etc. Some of these, including the Internet, are still often capitalized. But it can start to be a bit silly if you have a sentence like "We used Open Source Artificial Intelligence software to analyze our Big Data on the Cloud."
- yellowapple 6y ago
  In the case of "Open Source", that seems to be readily explainable by it being either an adjective or a noun, with the adjective being lower case and the noun being proper. "Internet" fits with that; you might say that an internet service provider provides access to the Internet (or, someday, to one or more internets, once there's really no longer a single Internet).
- gumby 6y ago
  However the Internet is like the Earth — there is but one.
  - guenthert 6y ago
    What about Internet2?
    - gumby 6y ago
      It is of course part of The Internet, and is a testbed for new internet protocols. And obscure enough that you already knew that :-)
      - guenthert 6y ago
        You give me too much credit there. I only heard of the Internet2 (looong time ago and I understood it as a response of academia to the Eternal September). From the Wikipedia article and cursory reading of the information provided at https://internet2.edu/network https://internet2.edu/network it isn't entirely clear to me, whether the Internet2 network infrastructure (provided now by Level3 if I got that right) is indeed part of The Internet. Iiuc, it uses the IPv6 protocol, but I don't know whether nodes on Internet2 are reachable directly from nodes on The Internet (which would defeat the purpose, I'd think). And if it is only accessible via gateways, can one still say that it is part of The Internet? In that case, all kind of specialized networks (military, research, private/commercial leased lines, etc.) could be considered to be part of The Internet too, whether they use the IP protocol or not. Not sure, whether that makes sense. Or maybe I'm not sufficiently appreciating the internet aspect of The Internet and confuse it with the IP-only Internet back-bone. ;-}
        gumby 6y ago
        If you read the original papers: it doesn’t have to use IP to be part of the Internet, just be connected.

by kennu 6y ago

I remember this being debated already in the 1990s, when the press wanted to start writing "internet". I think it's still the Internet (proper noun) and nothing has essentially changed since then.

ghaff 6y ago

The main explanation, which the article does mention, is that there's a tendency to capitalize novel terms: Big Data, Open Source, the World Wide Web, the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, etc. Some of these, including the Internet, are still often capitalized. But it can start to be a bit silly if you have a sentence like "We used Open Source Artificial Intelligence software to analyze our Big Data on the Cloud."

yellowapple 6y ago
In the case of "Open Source", that seems to be readily explainable by it being either an adjective or a noun, with the adjective being lower case and the noun being proper. "Internet" fits with that; you might say that an internet service provider provides access to the Internet (or, someday, to one or more internets, once there's really no longer a single Internet).
gumby 6y ago
However the Internet is like the Earth — there is but one.
- guenthert 6y ago
  What about Internet2?
  - gumby 6y ago
    It is of course part of The Internet, and is a testbed for new internet protocols. And obscure enough that you already knew that :-)
    - guenthert 6y ago
      You give me too much credit there. I only heard of the Internet2 (looong time ago and I understood it as a response of academia to the Eternal September). From the Wikipedia article and cursory reading of the information provided at https://internet2.edu/network https://internet2.edu/network it isn't entirely clear to me, whether the Internet2 network infrastructure (provided now by Level3 if I got that right) is indeed part of The Internet. Iiuc, it uses the IPv6 protocol, but I don't know whether nodes on Internet2 are reachable directly from nodes on The Internet (which would defeat the purpose, I'd think). And if it is only accessible via gateways, can one still say that it is part of The Internet? In that case, all kind of specialized networks (military, research, private/commercial leased lines, etc.) could be considered to be part of The Internet too, whether they use the IP protocol or not. Not sure, whether that makes sense. Or maybe I'm not sufficiently appreciating the internet aspect of The Internet and confuse it with the IP-only Internet back-bone. ;-}
      - gumby 6y ago
        If you read the original papers: it doesn’t have to use IP to be part of the Internet, just be connected.