Re: Ietf Digest, Vol 21, Issue 63

Robert Kahn <rkahn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:12:05 -0500

Patrice,

You ask a relevant historical question, so let me try my hand at an answer.

The history here is like this. Vint Cerf set up something called the 
Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB) in the late 1970s when we were 
both at DARPA. It was intended to be an informal group that would meet from 
time to time, provide inputs and guidance as necessary and also inform a 
small but critical group of implementers about what we were doing at 
DARPA.with respect to the Internet. The ICCB consisted of twelve folks from 
the research community, essentially all of whom were involved in 
implementing Internet protocols. Dave Clark of MIT chaired the ICCB and it 
met at various places usually in connection with another set of meetings 
such as the Packet Satellite Meetings that I ran, or perhaps the Packet 
Radio meetings or other network meetings at which larger groups would 
gather. Over a period of years, we had numerous requests from others to sit 
in for the purpose of just listening to the discussions. At first there 
were a small number of others sitting in, but over time the number grew to 
several hundred and large meeting halls were then needed to house the 
twelve ICCB members plus Vint and me. Logistics soon became unwieldy, and 
when Vint left to go to MCI in late 1982, I took over the responsibility 
for the ICCB on behalf of DARPA for about a year at that point. Dave Clark 
continued to chair the group and I brought Barry Leiner into the picture 
and helped him to learn about the developing Internet so he could take over 
for me. Once that happened (late 1983 as I recall), he and Dave Clark 
recommended that we no longer try to hold such large ICCB meetings and 
proposed instead to establish an Internet Activities Board (IAB) in place 
of the ICCB. The IAB would have (initially) ten working groups underneath 
it to focus on specific technical topics such as routing, end-end 
protocols, autonomous systems and the like. In this new alternative 
structure, the twleve members of the IAB would be responsible for 
chartering and overseeing the working groups and the IAB could now meet by 
itself since the other attendees were now free to attendee the various 
working group meetings, which were held at various sites (often and usually 
research participant sites) around the country, if not around the world. 
Dave Clark continued to chair the IAB as he had done for the ICCB. When 
DARPA decided to get out of networking (temporarily as it turned out) in 
the mid 1980s, the DARPA oversight went away as well. NSF later assumed 
responsibility for providing support to the IAB (and thus to the IETF) and 
CNRI was asked by NSF to create a dedicated Secretariat for that purpose, 
which we did. CNRI ran the Secretariat until just recently, with support 
from NSF until 1998 and with meeting fees helping to offset secretariat 
costs starting in the early 1990s. CNRI formed a subsidiary, Foretec 
Seminars, to carry out the secretariat functions under contract to CNRI. On 
December 15, 2005 after considerable discussion with the IETF leadership 
and others, CNRI completed the sale of Foretec to NeuStar Secretariat Services.

One of the original ten working groups under the IAB was called "Internet 
Engineering" and it was led by Ed  Cain of the Defense Communications 
Agency (DCA). The job of this working group was to maintain a vigil over 
the "punch list" items needed to get the Internet up and running smoothly 
at that time (1983). By about 1985 or so, its original job was primarily 
done, but the number of working groups had by then grown to a number closer 
to perhaps fifty. The IAB was now burdened by the need to oversee a much 
larger number of subordinate activities and it asked the Internet 
Engineering group to assume that responsibility on its behalf and reporting 
to the IAB. Thus did the Internet Engineering Task Force (as we know it 
today) come into being as a transition of the original Internet Engineer 
working group. While there were numerous meetings of the original Internet 
Engineering group, the first meeting of the group that reflected the new 
arrangement took place in early 1986 in San Diego.

I do not know what the plans are yet for Dallas, but I suspect the IETF 
wants to just move ahead and if so I would probably not plan to attend the 
Dallas meeting. If there is an effort to reflect on some of the historical 
elements of the IETF, it might make sense for me to attend.

bob

Bob,

They are talking about the first IETF meeting as taking place on Jan. 16, 
1986.  What about the IETF meeting as one of the several task forces that 
Barry Leiner put together while you were still at DARPA?  There was also 
the working group series that preceded the IETF.  I recall that Jon Postel 
had kept the records of this work on the early Internet.  Also, do you 
plan to go to Dallas?  The last message to Harold mentions some agreement 
reached at Tunis with respect to IETF work with the to be formed Internet 
Governance Forum (at least I think that is what it is going to be called) 
(see early work on it at http://www.intgovforum.org/.

Patrice
----- Original Message ----- From: <ietf-request@xxxxxxxx>
To: <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 10:40 AM
Subject: Ietf Digest, Vol 21, Issue 63

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:14:48 +0100
From: Brian E Carpenter <brc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: An important day for the IETF
To: IETF discussion list <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <43CB7218.1020008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Greetings,

The first IETF meeting took place 20 years ago today,
on January 16th, 1986, in San Diego, California. There were
21 attendees and Mike Corrigan was in the chair.

The IETF has come a long way since then. We'll celebrate
this in fine style during the 65th IETF meeting in
Dallas, Texas from March 19 to 24, 2006.

   Brian Carpenter
   IETF Chair No. 6

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Message: 7
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:30:13 +0100
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: An important day for the IETF
To: Brian E Carpenter <brc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, IETF discussion list
<ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <BE8FDBE7B6DE849010EB906F@B50854F0A9192E8EC6CDA126>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Happy birthday, IETF!

And remember to raise an extra toast to Mike St. Johns, who should be
coming to his 63rd or so IETF meeting in Dallas..... for some of us, this
has gotten to be a habit!

Wonder how many of the original 21 are still around????

            Harald, attendee since #22 (but missed #29)

--On 16. januar 2006 11:14 +0100 Brian E Carpenter <brc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Greetings,

The first IETF meeting took place 20 years ago today,
on January 16th, 1986, in San Diego, California. There were
21 attendees and Mike Corrigan was in the chair.

The IETF has come a long way since then. We'll celebrate
this in fine style during the 65th IETF meeting in
Dallas, Texas from March 19 to 24, 2006.

    Brian Carpenter
    IETF Chair No. 6

_______________________________________________

Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:00:12 +0100
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: An important day for the IETF
To: Noel Chiappa <jnc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, ietf@xxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <64C91C00D46DC52AA27AF3EB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

--On mandag, januar 16, 2006 09:39:36 -0500 Noel Chiappa
<jnc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

    > From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

    > Wonder how many of the original 21 are still around????

You rang? :-)

That's one :-)

The minutes of the first meeting are now online (scanned PDF)(!), and there
the attendees are listed as:

Braun, Hans-Werner
Bresica, Mike
Callon, Ross
Chiappa, Noel
Eldridge, Charles
Gross, Phill
Hinden, Robert
Mathis, James
Mills, David
Nagle, John
Natalie, Ronald
Rokitansky, Carl
Shacham, Nachum
Su, Zaw-Sing
Topolcic, Claudio
Zhang, Lixia

Clark, David
Corrigan, Mike
Deering, Steve
Means, Robert
St. Johns, Mike

The only email address that *might* still work is Hans-Werner Braun's....
none of the others have FQDNs.....

------------------------------

Message: 10
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:30:13 +0100
From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: An important day for the IETF
To: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Brian E Carpenter
<brc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, IETF discussion list <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060116151422.0395e2b0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 12:30 16/01/2006, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
Happy birthday, IETF!

Dear Harald,
you are right, happy birthday! An impressive continuity we should
strive to protect. In avoiding the status quo that some stakeholders
may favor, and areas outside of network engineering (such as
linguistic and country political definition :-)).

Wonder how many of the original 21 are still around????
Harald, attendee since #22 (but missed #29)

Impressive. My own agenda that sad fortnight might help better
understand the past, present and future of the network.

- on 12-15 January 1986 I attended the eight Telecommunications
Council Eighth Annual Conference at he Hawaiian Regent Hotel in
Honolulu. The theme was  "Evolution of the Digital Pacific". Audience
was probably 200 to 300 people. I had a lunch there with two lady
training consultant for the US Army TV network, to discuss how to
support their program on packet switch network, with Compression Lab tools.
- on the 16 I had a diner at the Bonaventure (LA) with Father Bourret
(http://www.kuangchi.com/english/history.htm). On the agenda: packet
switching in TW and a Vatican State International Packet Switch Gateway
- then I brought international data services experience in meetings
with an LA based Bank and for a complete turn-key online banking
service to a group NY banks. Multi-currency accounts, ATM
connections. I explained our experience with air-line reservation
services for most of the major airlines, hotels chains and
rent-a-cars, and how it worked at regular Travel Agents using a
service you would call a smart OPES today.
- met with Mobil Oil international communications manager (NY) and
routine meetings with the International Carriers. I was in Washington
on the 28th.

We used to refer to ARPANET as the "grand father" :-). Minitel users
were probably already 3 millions in France, plus Prestel in UK, plus
Germany, etc.. Over these 20 years since these Tymnet times, OSI,
then the Internet made us to step from 7+ to 70+ to 700+ millions of
active users worldwide.

But you may understand why I feel the architectural evolution is
sometimes dismaying and why constraints and rigidity cannot bring
innovation and expansion. We need now another technology leap frog
towards the 7+ billions users.

Only a multilingual, multinational, multilateral, multitechnology,
multiservice continuity architecture can deliver now.
Good luck to everyone for the next decade which will be decisive.

I do hope you will permit it to be in cooperation with the IGF,. That
we can proceed fast on a stable, reasonable and acceptable equal
opportunity but competitive fair basis. As we all agreed in Tunis.
jfc

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