4 ms·

How many "father's of the Internet" are there exactly?

by p1dda 3mo ago

My_Name 3mo ago
You have to wonder about the "Mother of the Internet" at this point...
- slim 3mo ago
  DoD
- wbl 3mo ago
  Radia Perlman is the name that jumps to mind for me, but there are a bunch of others.
  - My_Name 3mo ago
    I was referring more to the internet having many fathers...
- fragmede 3mo ago
  Ooh, several of those as well! Sibling comment mentions Radia Perlman. She invented Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) which prevents loops in wiring from taking down networks. (Plug an Ethernet cable into the same switch it comes out of.) This has saved everyone's bacon countless times. Elizabeth Feinler managed hostnames before there was DNS and helped establish several of the top level domains (TLD)s we use today. There's Karen Spärck Jones without whom, search engines wouldn't be what they are today. Judy Estrin helped with TCP/IP, Sally Floyd worked on congestion control algorithms, without which, the Internet would have gotten all choked up and never gotten off the ground. Susan Estrada helped commercialize the Internet, with her work on internet exchanges (IX), and Jean Armour Polly gets credit for coining the phrase "surfing the Internet." but should be better known for pioneering public Internet access and for her work with families and kids getting online. These women played a critical role in creating the Internet we have today.
Y-bar 3mo ago
Exactly as many as the USA has founding fathers, give or take a few. Which is to say less than in the Fathers of Mercy.
baxtr 3mo ago
Al Gore is definitely one of them!
- dctoedt 3mo ago
  > Al Gore is definitely one of them! Absolutely correct — and that's not sarcasm or irony. (Gore never claimed to have "invented the Internet"; that was a calumny spread by Republicans.)
  - greenchair 3mo ago
    1999 CNN interview where Gore stated: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet".
    - gilrain 3mo ago
      And that was true, within his context as senator. He was instrumental in passing the laws that fostered the Internet. It’s astonishing, I know, but the heavily-parroted meme was always reductive and is, at this point, misnformation.
- throw0101a 3mo ago
  > Al Gore is definitely one of them! Al Gore Jr.'s father, the Sr., was instrumental in enacting the US Interstate Highway system: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gore_Sr.#U.S._Senate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gore_Sr.#U.S._Senate Which transformed the economy for physical goods. Jr saw parallels with the transportation of information, and coined a term (in 1978!) about it: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_techno...
- cxr 3mo ago
  > There's always some nincompoop who brings that up. Al Gore deserves credit for what he did as a senator and vice president. He helped to pass legislation that enabled the NSFNET backbone to grow and to permit commercial traffic to flow on the government-sponsored backbones in the US. Had he not done that, it's pretty likely that the commercial sector would not have seen an opportunity to create a commercial internet that all of us can enjoy, so he does deserve some credit for what he's done. — Vint Cerf, Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0rjtnwC9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0rjtnwC9A>
fragmede 3mo ago
The two that are most widely recognized are Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, for TCP/IP, but that's just the start of it. There's JCR Licklider, who first imagined a global network of computers. There's Leonard Kleinrock, first ARPANET nod and packet-switching theory. Larry Roberts, who led development of ARPANET. Paul Baran independently invented packet switching. Donald Davies coined the term "packet" and also developed packet switching. Louis Pouzin also worked on TCP/IP. Jon Postel managed the IP standards and address assignments for decades. Ray Tomlinson invented email and the @ sign. Of course, we can't forget Tim Berneres-Lee, to whom we credit the invention of the web (HTTP, HTML, URLS, the first web browser and server). So, eleven. The Dream Machine is a history book by M. Mitchell Waldrop that tells the story of JCR Licklider.
- mahouk 3mo ago
  Vannevar Bush?
  - fragmede 3mo ago
    Ooh, hadn't heard of him. From Wikipedia, V. Bush is famous for, among other things, creating the NSF, the memex, an analog microfilm precusor to hypertext, and his essay "As We May Think" in 1945. Definitely influential in the creation of our world today!

How many "father's of the Internet" are there exactly?

by p1dda 3mo ago

How many "father's of the Internet" are there exactly?

My_Name 3mo ago

You have to wonder about the "Mother of the Internet" at this point...

slim 3mo ago
DoD
wbl 3mo ago
Radia Perlman is the name that jumps to mind for me, but there are a bunch of others.
- My_Name 3mo ago
  I was referring more to the internet having many fathers...
fragmede 3mo ago
Ooh, several of those as well! Sibling comment mentions Radia Perlman. She invented Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) which prevents loops in wiring from taking down networks. (Plug an Ethernet cable into the same switch it comes out of.) This has saved everyone's bacon countless times. Elizabeth Feinler managed hostnames before there was DNS and helped establish several of the top level domains (TLD)s we use today. There's Karen Spärck Jones without whom, search engines wouldn't be what they are today. Judy Estrin helped with TCP/IP, Sally Floyd worked on congestion control algorithms, without which, the Internet would have gotten all choked up and never gotten off the ground. Susan Estrada helped commercialize the Internet, with her work on internet exchanges (IX), and Jean Armour Polly gets credit for coining the phrase "surfing the Internet." but should be better known for pioneering public Internet access and for her work with families and kids getting online. These women played a critical role in creating the Internet we have today.

Y-bar 3mo ago

Exactly as many as the USA has founding fathers, give or take a few. Which is to say less than in the Fathers of Mercy.

baxtr 3mo ago

Al Gore is definitely one of them!

dctoedt 3mo ago
> Al Gore is definitely one of them! Absolutely correct — and that's not sarcasm or irony. (Gore never claimed to have "invented the Internet"; that was a calumny spread by Republicans.)
- greenchair 3mo ago
  1999 CNN interview where Gore stated: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet".
  - gilrain 3mo ago
    And that was true, within his context as senator. He was instrumental in passing the laws that fostered the Internet. It’s astonishing, I know, but the heavily-parroted meme was always reductive and is, at this point, misnformation.
throw0101a 3mo ago
> Al Gore is definitely one of them! Al Gore Jr.'s father, the Sr., was instrumental in enacting the US Interstate Highway system: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gore_Sr.#U.S._Senate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gore_Sr.#U.S._Senate Which transformed the economy for physical goods. Jr saw parallels with the transportation of information, and coined a term (in 1978!) about it: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_techno...
cxr 3mo ago
> There's always some nincompoop who brings that up. Al Gore deserves credit for what he did as a senator and vice president. He helped to pass legislation that enabled the NSFNET backbone to grow and to permit commercial traffic to flow on the government-sponsored backbones in the US. Had he not done that, it's pretty likely that the commercial sector would not have seen an opportunity to create a commercial internet that all of us can enjoy, so he does deserve some credit for what he's done. — Vint Cerf, Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0rjtnwC9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0rjtnwC9A>

fragmede 3mo ago

The two that are most widely recognized are Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, for TCP/IP, but that's just the start of it. There's JCR Licklider, who first imagined a global network of computers. There's Leonard Kleinrock, first ARPANET nod and packet-switching theory. Larry Roberts, who led development of ARPANET. Paul Baran independently invented packet switching. Donald Davies coined the term "packet" and also developed packet switching. Louis Pouzin also worked on TCP/IP. Jon Postel managed the IP standards and address assignments for decades. Ray Tomlinson invented email and the @ sign. Of course, we can't forget Tim Berneres-Lee, to whom we credit the invention of the web (HTTP, HTML, URLS, the first web browser and server). So, eleven. The Dream Machine is a history book by M. Mitchell Waldrop that tells the story of JCR Licklider.

mahouk 3mo ago
Vannevar Bush?
- fragmede 3mo ago
  Ooh, hadn't heard of him. From Wikipedia, V. Bush is famous for, among other things, creating the NSF, the memex, an analog microfilm precusor to hypertext, and his essay "As We May Think" in 1945. Definitely influential in the creation of our world today!