I don't know him personally, nor do I know the circumstances of his
death. I do know that whenever I have read the standards and
documentation about the Internet, his name keeps appearing - as an
author and as someone who has kept things well organised.
The Internet's extraordinary growth is a direct result of the vision
of people who combined many things, especially a vision of openness,
extendability, and elegance - in both a technical sense and in terms
of the social and functional goals they had for this computer
networking protocol.
I believe that the Internet is essential for all nations, that it
cannot be useful while being reliably censored, that dictatorships
cannot long survive in the presence of the open communications the
Internet provides and that therefore the Internet will be a decisive
factor in eliminating dictatorships - probably peacefully - over the
next decade or so. The Internet is also an extraordinary means by
which people who feel like a fish out of water in their own pond
can become friends with like minded fish in distant ponds and oceans.
It is extraordinary that a computer networking protocol could have
such a profound political and social impact. I am not sure that the
Internet's founders would have anticipated all this initially, but I
believe that these global benefits are a direct result of their
bright, open, social and technical vision.
>From
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc.html
you can search for all the Internet's RFCs - the planning and
standards documents which define Internet protocols. Using the top
link to search for "Postel" returns over a hundred RFCs which Jon
Postel wrote or co-wrote, starting with RFC 45 in 1970 (when I was
a schoolboy learning about valve radios), and ending with rfc2400.txt
of September 1998, which lists which of the RFCs are currently
Internet Standards.
I am very grateful to Jon Postel and the many other people who
thought and worked so well to plan the Internet protocols and to
manage its development.
- Robin
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 14:11:25 -0700
From: pagre@communication.ucsd.edu (Phil Agre)
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]Jon Postel
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Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 07:28:40 -0400
From: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: IP: Remembrance/postel
I, and others I fear, have spent a sleepless night after hearing of the
death of Jon Postel last night. This morning there was a note in my mail
box from Vint Cerf that said many of the things I feel at this time. I
asked him for permission to send on which he granted.
I also remember Jon. I was his primary thesis advisor along with Jerry
Estrin and I remember with fond memories the months spent closely working
with Jon while his eager mind developed the ideas in back of what was a
pioneering thesis that founded the area of protocol verification. Since
I was at UC Irvine and Jon at UCLA we used to meet in the morning prior
to my ride to UCI at a Pancake House in Santa Monica for breakfast and the
hard work of developing a thesis. I gained a great respect for Jon then
and 10 pounds of weight.
I will miss him greatly. Jon was my second Ph.D. student. The first,
Philip Merlin, also died way before his time.
Dave
________________________________________________________________________
October 17, 1998
I REMEMBER IANA
Vint Cerf
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 Prof. 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 is
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.
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 14:30:14 -0700
From: pagre@communication.ucsd.edu (Phil Agre)
To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]more on Jon Postel
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Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 14:51:51 +0800
From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Subject: Fwd: Jon Postel
Bob Braden has been a life-long close friend and associate of Jon. A
message from Vint Cerf is getting wide publication. As one would expect,
it is an excellent note.
This one from Bob resonated with me particularly strongly, and I thought
those of you who contacted me, asking to verify Jon's passing, might also
appreciate seeing it, if you are not on the IETF mailing list:
>From: braden@ISI.EDU
>Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 17:55:30 -0700
>To: ietf@ietf.org
>Subject: Jon Postel
>
>
>I have had the great privilege of knowing Jon Postel as a collegue and
>as a friend since the early ARPANET day, about 1970. I have sat
>countless hours in countless meeting rooms with him, as the ARPANET
>grew, became the Internet, and grew again. I know well how much of
>himself Jon put into the ARPANET and (especially) the Internet, and
>what a great debt we owe to his intelligence and wisdom.
>
>Jon lavished quiet but passionate dedication on the Internet. He hated
>it when people said or did stupid or destructive things. And yet he
>carried a gentle sense of humor and a sense of proportion. What series
>of documents do you know, besides the RFCs, that include delightful
>surprises every April 1?
>
>There are many aspects of the IETF culture that matched Jon very well.
>Dedication to making things that work, a never-ending attempt to keep
>protocols as simple and powerful as possible, and a slight counter-
>cultural tinge -- all characterized Jon. Our best memorial to Jon
>will be to try harder to produce protocols of the highest standards,
>and to document them clearly and with grace.
>
>It was easy to overlook or underestimate Jon's contribution. He did
>not give riveting speeches; none of his phrases made it onto T shirts.
>Lots and lots of very bright people contributed ideas and words to the
>Internet protocol suite, but it was Jon Postel who spun out the final
>words that define the Internet. As far as I know, Jon had no model to
>follow when he wrote RFCs 791, 792, and 793, yet the result was a model
>that I personally have spent nearly 20 years studying and trying to
>emulate. And Jon's contrubution was not just the skill and grace of
>his editorial style; in writing these documents, Jon determined much of
>the detailed content, interpeting and elaborating the ideas of others
>to produce one seamless whole.
>
>A well known "sage" has recently talked about the cult of Jon and about
>his arrogance and his eliteism. Well, yes, there was a cult of Jon, in
>the sense that Jon earned the respect and admiration of many people.
>And he was a bit elitist, but only in the sense of trying to develop,
>preserve, and promost the best ideas. But arrogance is so far from
>Jon's personality that the claim is ludicrous.
>
>For many years during the infancy of the Internet, his compatriots in
>the early Internet days admiringly dubbed Jon the Protocol Czar, with
>sub-title: Unfailing Arbiter of Good Taste in protocols. The Internet
>was able to grow lustily for many years with a minimum of engineering
>bastardization (entropy growth); we owe much of that to Jon's constant
>attention to good sense and detail. He used his position as RFC Editor
>and IANA to unflinchingly intervene to keep a modicum of good
>engineering sense in the Internet architecture. Jon was a roomful of
>wise and active committees, all rolled up in one.
>
>Jon's untimely passing is a tragedy for all of us who have had the
>privilege of knowing and working with him. We will miss him.
>
>Bob Braden
>
>PS: I send this message using Jon's protocol SMTP, to a domain name
>that follows a system he designed, using protocols that he helped
>to design and that he documented.
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Dave Crocker Tel: +60 (19) 3299 445
<mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com> Post Office Box 296, U.P.M.
Serdang, Selangor 43400 MALAYSIA
Brandenburg Consulting
<http://www.brandenburg.com> Tel: +1 (408) 246 8253
Fax: +1(408)246 8253 675 Spruce Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA