Network Working Group V. Cerf
Request for Comments: 2468 MCI
Category: Informational October 1998
I REMEMBER IANA
October 17, 1998
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.
Remembrance
A long time ago, in a network, far far away, a great adventure took
place!
Out of the chaos of new ideas for communication, the eXPeriments, the
tentative designs, and crUCible of testing, there emerged a
cornucopia of networks. Beginning with the ARPANET, an endless
stream of networks evolved, and ultimately were interlinked to become
the Internet. Someone had to keep track of all the protocols, the
identifiers, networks and addresses and ultimately the names of all
the things in the networked universe. And someone had to keep track
of all the information that erupted with volcanic force from the
intensity of the debates and discussions and endless invention that
has continued unabated for 30 years. That someone was Jonathan B.
Postel, our Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, friend, engineer,
confidant, leader, icon, and now, first of the giants to depart from
our midst.
Jon, our beloved IANA, is gone. Even as I write these Words I cannot
quite grASP this stark fact. We had almost lost him once before in
1991. Surely we knew he was at risk as are we all. But he had been
our rock, the foundation on which our every web search and email was
built, always there to mediate the random dispute, to remind us when
our documentation did not do justice to its subject, to make
difficult decisions with apparent ease, and to consult when careful
consideration was needed. We will survive our loss and we will
remember. He has left a monumental legacy for all Internauts to
contemplate. Steadfast service for decades, moving when others
seemed paralyzed, always finding the right course in a complex
minefield of technical and sometimes political obstacles.
Jon and I went to the same high school, Van Nuys High, in the San
Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. But we were in different
classes and I really didn't know him then. Our real meeting came at
UCLA when we became a part of a group of graduate students working
for Professor Leonard Kleinrock on the ARPANET project. Steve
Crocker was another of the Van Nuys crowd who was part of the team
and led the development of the first host-host protocols for the
ARPANET. When Steve invented the idea of the Request for Comments
series, Jon became the instant editor. When we needed to keep track
of all the hosts and protocol identifiers, Jon volunteered to be the
Numbers Czar and later the IANA once the Internet was in place.
Jon was a founding member of the Internet Architecture Board and
served continuously from its founding to the present. He was the
FIRST individual member of the Internet Society I know, because he
and Steve Wolff raced to see who could fill out the application forms
and make payment first and Jon won. He served as a trustee of the
Internet Society. He was the custodian of the .US domain, a founder
of the Los Nettos Internet service, and, by the way, managed the
networking research division of USC Information Sciences Institute.
Jon loved the outdoors. I know he used to enjoy backpacking in the
high Sierras around Yosemite. Bearded and sandaled, Jon was our
resident hippie-patriarch at UCLA. He was a private person but fully
capable of engaging photon torpedoes and going to battle stations in
a good engineering argument. And he could be stubborn beyond all
expectation. He could have outwaited the Sphinx in a staring
contest, I think.
Jon inspired loyalty and steadfast devotion among his friends and his
colleagues. For me, he personified the words "selfless service".
For nearly 30 years, Jon has served us all, taken little in return,
indeed sometimes receiving abuse when he should have received our
deepest appreciation. It was particularly gratifying at the last
Internet Society meeting in Geneva to see Jon receive the Silver
Medal of the International Telecommunications Union. It is an award
generally reserved for Heads of State, but I can think of no one more
deserving of global recognition for his contributions.
While it seems almost impossible to avoid feeling an enormous sense
of loss, as if a yawning gap in our networked universe had opened up
and swallowed our friend, I must tell you that I am comforted as I
contemplate what Jon has wrought. He leaves a legacy of edited
documents that tell our collective Internet story, including not only
the technical but also the poetic and whimsical as well. He
completed the incorporation of a successor to his service as IANA and
leaves a lasting legacy of service to the community in that role.
His memory is rich and vibrant and will not fade from our collective
consciousness. "What would Jon have done?", we will think, as we
wrestle in the days ahead with the problems Jon kept so well tamed
for so many years.
There will almost surely be many memorials to Jon's monumental
service to the Internet Community. As current chairman of the
Internet Society, I pledge to establish an award in Jon's name to
recognize long-standing service to the community, the Jonathan B.
Postel Service Award, which will be awarded to Jon posthumously as
its first recipient.
If Jon were here, I am sure he would urge us not to mourn his passing
but to celebrate his life and his contributions. He would remind us
that there is still much work to be done and that we now have the
responsibility and the opportunity to do our part. I douBT that
anyone could possibly duplicate his record, but it stands as a
measure of one man's astonishing contribution to a community he knew
and loved.
Security Considerations
Security issues are not relevant to this Remembrance.
Author's Address
Vinton G. Cerf
MCI
EMail: vcerf@mci.net
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