remembering Jon Postel: Looking Beyond the Decade

Rodney Joffe rjoffe at centergate.com
Thu Oct 2 17:45:44 UTC 2008


On Oct 1, 2008, at 10:49 PM, Scott Francis wrote:

> nice writeup by Mr. Cerf:
> http://www.circleid.com/posts/ 
> 20081001_remembering_jon_postel_a_decade/
>
> I was not fortunate enough to have known Mr. Postel, but I have
> developed a deep posthumous respect for the work he did from listening
> to what others have had to say about him, and from using (and
> benefiting from) his legacy on a daily basis. He was not alone among
> the pioneers who enabled the Internet to become what it is today, but
> there weren't many who made such a significant contribution.

You may want to then consider coming to the next NANOG being held in  
just under two weeks time in Los Angeles (http://www.nanog.org/). This  
NANOG celebrates Jon's contributions on the 10th Anniversary of his  
passing (Oct 16) and includes a rare keynote opening speech by Vint  
Cerf, as well as a 90 minute panel of folks who were "there" when some  
important decisions were made, and who will share with us the reasons  
some of those decisions were made. Panelists like Paul Mockapetris who  
invented the DNS, Bob Braden who has taken care of much of Jon's role  
as RFC editor since Jon left us, Danny Cohen who Jon worked for, and  
who also worked for Jon ;-) at ISI in the '70s, Bob Hinden who was the  
ietf's first Area Director for routing, Lixia Zhang who was part of a  
small group of 6 including Jon who tackled the issues of addressing  
for the iab/iesg, and Van Jacobson, who you probably know mostly for  
his congestion control work, but who Paul Francis "credits" for the  
concept of NAT. Of course these folks had many other key contributions  
to "the Internets".

Besides these official speakers at NANOG 44 you'll also get to meet in  
person many of Jon's peers and friends from the early days. I hesitate  
to name any, but if you listen carefully in the hallways, and for  
comments from the audience during this NANOG, you'll pick up on them.

If you want to get to know more about some of the people who really  
gave us the opportunity to do the things we do today, this is probably  
the NANOG you want to attend. BTW, it is a joint meeting with ARIN, so  
you get a two'fer.

""be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from  
others" - Postel's Law




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