Talk:List of Internet pioneers

Finns

Maybe there should be some mention of these three guys and their Erwise... The Greatest Internet Pioneers You Never Heard Of: The Story of Erwise and Four Finns Who Showed the Way to the Web Browser Juha-Pekka Tikka 3/3/09 http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/03/03/the-greatest-internet-pioneers-you-never-heard-of-the-story-of-erwise-and-four-finns-who-showed-the-way-to-the-web-browser/ AlbertaSunwapta (talk) 12:41, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I would say not, since they came long after the Internet had been invented (in the 1970s about when these kids were born). The Internet is not a web browser. Probably another story though to tell. W Nowicki (talk) 00:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done I added an External link to this article a few days ago. Jeff Ogden (talk) 20:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Is this article missing women and non-U.S. pioneers?

I've been working on this article for a few days. I think I'm pretty much done for now. But looking over the article, I noticed that all of the pioneers are men and all but two are from the U.S. (the two are from the UK). Is the article missing some important contributors to the development of the Internet or is it just the case that there weren't many women involved in computing in the early days of the Internet (1960s, 1970s)? And, while the Internet was a largely U.S. invention with the early foundation work sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, are there non-U.S. pioneers that should be added? Jeff Ogden (talk) 02:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Joyce K. Reynolds? Jeff Ogden (talk) 03:04, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would say since she already has an article and was editor of RFCs along with Postel. But otherwise it was certainly a male bastion (and still is, alas, to a large extent). My COI: I worked in the field starting in the late 70s. Two other women I can think of are Deborah Estrin and her sister Judith Estrin, although they were more from the 80s I think. Elizabeth J. Feinler, known as "Jake" is missing an article. She was director of the Network Information Center for many years, the document clearinghouse and naming authority etc. sri bio photos Oral History And perhaps Cisco founder Sandra Lerner but the question is where to draw the line. I was thinking of keeping it at the TCP/IP layer and below. Many people confuse the Ineternet with the web. Perhaps we can keep it to the three existing ones, and say nobody after them in this list? Otherwise you would get all the kids who started web sites during the bubble. Put those in a Web Pioneers article or somesuch.

Others with articles in the LAN field (especially if we include Lerner) would be John Shoch, Robert Metcalfe, David Boggs maybe even Andy Bechtolsheim and Bill Joy? Actually I would add Al Gore to the list, since he was the politician who backed widening the Internet to include more than just DARPA-sponsored projects. Certainly Paul Mockapetris DNS inventor. The Dan Lynch who founded the original InterOp; probably deserves discussion, as well as the events. But no article yet. And of course I was resisting writing a vanity article on myself.

As for non-US, there were a few links across the Atlantic in the early days. Peter T. Kirstein should be added, and Danny Cohen (engineer) is from Israel (but worked in the US). There were early nodes in the nordic countries but I cannot put my finger on any Wikipedia articles. Generally international expansion did not come until the Acceptable Use Policy changed, and the Internet Society started pushing for it. In fact, here is a good limit on what is a "pioneer": the Internet Society considers those of us who joined that first year (1992, according to its article) as "pioneer members". So I would suggest that as the limit; those who got in the field after 1992 should not be called "pioneers".

W Nowicki (talk) 17:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Is Allison Mankin (ISI) someone to consider? Eric Aupperle (Merit)? Hans-Werner Braun (Merit, UCSD, Teledesic)? Elise Gerich (Merit, IEPG, NANOG, @Home, Juniper, ICANN)? Susan Estrada (CERFnet, CIX, CENIC, Firstmile.us)? Radia Perlman? Robert Cailliau? Ed Krol? Yakov Rekhter? Dennis Jennings (NSF: CSNET, NSFNET)? Doug Van Houweling (Merit, ANS, Internet2)? Tom West (CENIC, National LambdaRail)? Sally Floyd? Nicola Pellow? Glenn Ricart (FIX, National LambdaRail)?

I agree that it is hard to know where to draw lines. I don't think there can be any hard and fast date that defines an "Internet pioneer". I think it should get harder to be a pioneer the further past 1992 or 1995 you get (1995 was the end of NSFNET and the start of serious commercialization/privatization of the Internet). But, since the Internet is still evolving, I think someone who makes a substantial or truly innovative contribution should still be able to be a pioneer. For example should Steve Jobs be considered an Internet pioneer for introducing the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes music store which provided a path for RIAA members to see the Internet as a way to make money and not just as a threat? I can make a strong case either way.

Jeff Ogden (talk) 19:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a saying that "anything can be done with enough time and resources." Or as the NASA folks say it, "with enough thrust, anything can fly." But sometimes focus and editing is valuable. For example, only people with articles should be added. Write the articles first for the missing ones. I would suggest Feinler as your first new article, since "pioneers" are generally "first". I would not add people who did not improve the Internet itself, but innovated on top of it, or were involved in running it operationally (even if notable). Not to belittle their achievement, but just to avoid mission creep. Also note Wikipedia:Content forking: the entry for each person should not duplicate their article but be a summary of their contribution, maybe with a little context (e.g. where they did it). Might even convert to more of a "list" convention with just one line or a table row per person. My bias as you guess is technological innovation. Perhaps if you want to add those we could move this list to something like "Internet technology pioneers" and then have another "Internet business pioneers" and "Web pioneers"? And I would argue against Steve Jobs. Partly because in the early days Apple had their own AppleTalk protocol competing against TCP/IP. He was certainly a business pioneer many times over. But as an analogy, Leland Stanford would not be considered a Metallurgy pioneer. He ran a railroad business that ran on steel rails, but did not improve the steel in any way. Even Andrew Carnegie owned steel companies but did not innovate in the metallurgy. Just my opinion. W Nowicki (talk) 22:40, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Found another potential one from outside the US: Louis Pouzin of France, created CYCLADES between the ARPANET and TCP/IP time frames. Also there was the Cambridge Ring around this time. Roger Needham I think was an instigator? Godfather probably was Maurice Wilkes. More research some day. Perhaps if the Ethernet folks are added. W Nowicki (talk) 22:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The intro to this article says "These include early theoretical foundations, specifying original protocols, and expansion beyond a research tool to wide deployment." [emphasis added] So, I don't think that we need to or should limit this article to protocol or technology pioneers. However, we do need to draw the line somewhere. Not sure just where, but without completely ruling them out, I think we should be increasingly careful as contributions occur past the mid-1990s and as contributions take on an increasing commercial or business flavor.

A Web pioneers article might be a good idea, but if that happens I think Berners-Lee, Cailliau, Andreessen, and Bina should appear as both Internet and Web pioneers.

I've added quite a few entries from the names suggested earlier including a few women and some pioneers from outside of North America (Joyce Reynolds, Jake Feinler, Radia Perlman, Peter Kirstein, Robert Caelliau, Louis Pouzin, Paul Mockapetris).

I haven't added the LAN folks (Shoch, Metcalfe, Boggs), the founders of Cisco (Lerner and Bosack), the founders of Sun (Bechtolsheim and Joy), or the Cambridge Ring (Needham and Wilkes) since the connection to the Internet seems somewhat indirect. The existence of LANs and commercial routers made by Cisco and others were clearly important to the development of the Internet, but in much the same way as the existence of personal computers and workstations or even integrated circuits. Once we start to pull on that string, I don't know where we would stop.

I wasn't going to include Al Gore, not because he didn't contribute (he did), but just because of all the jokes about Al Gore creating the Internet. I could be convinced that Bill Joy should be added because of his work adding TCP/IP support to BSD Unix rather than as a founder of Sun. I wasn't sure what to do about Deborah and Judith Estrin. I don't know a lot about them, but from what I read their contributions to the development of the Internet didn't stand out. Same thing for Danny Cohen, whose work seemed more focused on applications over the Internet than the Internet itself. Someone who knows more about them than I do might want to argue that they should be included or might want to just go ahead and add them.

Other folks mentioned earlier that I haven't added are: Allison Mankin (ISI), Eric Aupperle (Merit), Hans-Werner Braun (Merit, UCSD, Teledesic), Elise Gerich (Merit, IEPG, NANOG, @Home, Juniper, ICANN), Susan Estrada (CERFnet, CIX, CENIC, Firstmile.us), Ed Krol, Yakov Rekhter, Dennis Jennings (NSF: CSNET, NSFNET), Doug Van Houweling (Merit, ANS, Internet2), Tom West (CENIC, National LambdaRail), Sally Floyd, Nicola Pellow, Glenn Ricart (FIX, National LambdaRail), or Steve Jobs. I'm comfortable leaving most of these folks out. I do wonder about Sally Floyd because of her work on congestion control. Yakov Rekhter because of his work on BGP since one can argue that before BGP the Internet wasn't really a true network of networks. I also wonder about Eric Aupperle because of his work on the Merit Network starting back in the late 1960s as well as his work as PI/Director of the NSFNET Project at Merit in the 1980s and 1990s. Or Doug Van Houweling for his work with Merit to create the NSFNET partnership (Merit, IBM, MCI, State of Michigan, and later ANS) and his later work establishing Internet2. I worked with and for both Eric and Doug, so it might be better for someone other than me to make that call.

Jeff Ogden (talk) 20:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

There were a moderate number of non-US pioneers in the middle stages. (The early stages, in the ARPANET era, are almost exclusively US, I think.) One fruitful place to look is what's called the 'Internetwork Working Group' of the mid-70s; a good history of that is here. I think the list has most of the important names from that period now (Pouzin [he's the most significant non-US name of all, IMO], Kirstein, etc). (BTW, Mockapetris is US, not non-US, I'm pretty sure - can't find his birth info to be certain. And Roger Needham and Maurice Wilkes, although important figures, don't really belong in this list; neither had much to do with the Internet or its roots - the Cambridge Ring work was not really influential in any Internet work (although we knew of it.)

As to women, there just weren't that many. The two names I recall from the early days are Ginny Strazisar (now Travers) and Radia Perlman. Radia's subsequent work on Byzantine routing, IS-IS, bridging etc raise her to the point where she probably deserves to be in this list (I myself would have set a very high bar, high enough to knock off a number of the current listees, hence my waffling on if she makes it over the bar), no matter what her gender. Ginny I'm less sure of; she got an IEEE award for doing the first IP router (I wrote a recommendation for her for that), but I'm not sure she rises to the level of 'pioneer' - but maybe she does, I'll leave that call to others. Noel (talk) 17:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Who else? Another round

I would be very tempted to add Danny Cohen. (He certainly has a better claim to be there than some others who are already up.) I think he more than anyone was responsible for proto-TCP being split into IP and TCP (pre TCP3, there was no separate TCP and IP), and making UDP available. How many applications these days run on datagrams, not reliable streams? A lot... I'm going to check with the Internet-History mailing list (archives first, I think we discussed this a while back), but I think he was primarily responsible, along with David Reed of MIT.

 Done. I added Danny Cohen. Feel free to update my initial entry. I didn't say anything about work on TCP since I didn't see that in the various online biographies or in his Wikipedia article. Feel free to add it once it is verified. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 03:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

He didn't really work on TCP - I only mentioned TCP because, as I said, before TCP3, there was no separate TCP+IP, it was all one thing, and the only inter-machine transport model available was reliable stream.

I looked into the archives, and it appears that the people responsible for the IP-transport split are some combination of Danny and Dave Reed, with help from John Shoch and Steve Crocker. See this message, and then this one for a bit more on the timing. Alas, at this distance (temporally) we'll probably never be able to sort out who gets exactly what share of the credit. I once had the impression that it was more Danny that anyone else, but it was slightly before my time, so I didn't see it myself - and after reading the archived message I no longer would trust my previous impression. Noel (talk) 19:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

You mentioned Danny Cohen, David P. Reed, John Shoch, and Steve Crocker. Danny and Steve are now listed in the article, but Dave and John are not. Should they be added? There are already Wikipedia biographies for both of them. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk)

This is where it gets hard to call - I mean, we could easily add dozens of names to the list, and setting objective criteria as to who to include, and who not, is difficult. Take Shoch. He didn't directly work on the Internet, but he did a lot on PUP, and PUP had a big influence on us, and his IEN-19 is still cited. So does he count? I don't know - he's borderline. Reed had a big impact because of UDP, and also the end-to-end stuff, so I would say probably 'yes'. But there is this big grey area: people like Vint, etc clearly belong, and manhy people clearly don't rise to that level, but that still leaves a good number in the middle... Noel (talk) 15:46, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Who else? You might want to add Steve Crocker, who started the whole RFC series, and had a large hand in the development of NCP (the first user-user protocol). And maybe Charlie Herzfeld, who was the DARPA Director who said 'OK' to the ARPANet. There are probably some people involved with the FRICC and that era who belong there too, for overseeing the transition from a government network to an open one - maybe Dennis Jennings? Looking at RFC-1336, and the 'Birth' plaque, I don't see any other obvious missing names. I do see at least one name on the page that doesn't IMO really belong there (not on the same level as people like Lick, etc), but I'm not going to say who - I don't want be negative - I'd rather focus on those who got left out. Noel (talk) 01:32, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

 Partly done. I added Steve Crocker. Next up is Charlie Herzfeld. If we add John Klensin, everyone on the Internet Hall of Fame "Pioneers" list will be listed here as well. I'd be happy to add Dennis Jennings, but someone would need to write a main biographical article for him first. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 14:33, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

 Partly done. I added Charlie Herzfeld and John Klensin. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 02:52, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

 Partly done. I started a draft biographical article for Dennis Jennings. I'd welcome any comments or suggestions. Or feel free to edit the draft directly. See: User:W163/Draft/Dennis Jennings. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 15:00, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. I added Dennis Jennings. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 21:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Plaque picture deleted

I think the claim is that the plaque is a copyrighted work by default, so a photo of it would be a non-free derivative work, or something like that? Seem far-fetched since there are all sorts of photos of public plaques around, but I am not a lawyer. A "fair use" claim might work here, maybe? I do know there was some friction with UCLA who thought they should be the one getting the PR, since although Cerf as at Stanford at the time he did IP, the first ARPAnet node and Kleinrock were at UCLA. And if the photo was claimed to be a copyright violation, then why was the text kept? Finally, I was there for the ceremony, and it was in the Alumni building, not in Gates Hall. At least that was where the event was. See announcement which indeed says it would move to Gates Hall, so that explains it. W Nowicki (talk) 17:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a conversation of sorts going on about this over on the Commons, see User talk:Martin H.#Birth of the Internet jpeg. I think the reason that only the image and not the text was deleted is that the image is over on the Commons, while the text is here on Wikipedia, and the Commons folks are only worrying about the Commons. I certainly hope that no one thinks that the text needs to be removed from this article. Jeff Ogden (talk) 18:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Writing as (new) commons contributor: They don't allow "fair use" images, this doesn't affect en:w: resources kept on en:w:. Unrelated, I added John Klensin to Category:Internet pioneers, please do whatever is needed, e.g., revert if FTP 1969 verified by an ISOC PR in 1998 isn't what you want. –89.204.153.138 (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the copyright argument is wrong - there is no copyright mark on the plaque. If anyone wants it, I have a photo I took on the day (before the plaque was mounted) that is actually readable. PeterLHigginson (talk) 01:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If you upload your photo to the Wikipedia Commons, we can use it here and see if the powers that be over on the Commons object. The last time around their argument wasn't that there was a copyright problem with the photograph, but that someone held a copyright to the plaque and its content. I didn't agree with them then and I don't agree now. Who would hold the copyright to the plaque? The person who designed it? The author of its text? Stanford, because it is bolted to a wall in one of their buildings? And if there is still an objection on the Commons, the photo could be uploaded to en.wikipedia where fair use is allowed. A new readable photo would be an improvement over the old and not so readable photo in any case. -Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 17:22, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Bernard Luskin?

Is Bernard Luskin an Internet pioneer? He is on this list. Should he be or should he be removed? Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 15:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC) He should remain on the list. He worked in all facets of the internet as it evolved.

Looking into this a bit more, I notice that Mr. Luskin is called a distance education, a media education, an e-learning, and an interactive technology pioneer, but I didn't see him called an Internet pioneer anywhere and he isn't on the other lists of Internet pioneers. I also noticed that all of the other Internet pioneers have a biographical article that is linked to from this article, but Mr. Luskin does not. For these reasons and because of the complete lack of citations in the sub-section on Mr. Luskin, I will delete his entry in a few days unless someone expresses a strong desire not to do so here. Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 17:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done - I deleted the entry. Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 03:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done again. I deleted another unsourced mention of Mr. Luskin that somehow got added to the end of the entry for Leonard Kleinrock. The deleted sentence read: "Bernard Luskin,a doctoral student at UCLA bridged much of the work into education through is dissertation working between UCLA and the Rand Corporation in articulating the theory of innformation flow in large communication nets pioneered by Leonard Kleinrock into education." --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 05:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

FACTS: Luskin is founding president of Coastline Community College in 1976, the model for many of the distance learning programs. He was a member of the team that put the first computer in a community college for instruction in 1963. Luskin is the founding Director of the first PhD program in Media Psychology in 2002. It is located at Fielding Graduate University and has spearheaded the growth of the Society for Media Psychology and Technology of the American Psychological Association. Luskin was a doctoral student at UCLA in 1968 when Leonard Kleinrock sent one of the early messages that helped ignite the internet. He worked with the Rand Corporation in validating the Delhi Method through his dissertation studying computer assisted instruction. He is founding chancellor of Jones International University, the first fully accredited, fully online university, and founding CEO of Touro University Worldwide, now fully online. He is founding CEO of Philips Interactive Media, that was central in developing MPEG, CD and digital programming. Luskin was President of Mind Extension University, an early cable network that pioneered telecourses leading to online programming. He did the legwork in establishing KOCE TV in Orange County California and pioneered telecourses through Coastline College and KOCE-TV. His Blog: Google, The Media Psychology Effect, posts more than fifty articles on media and technology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.240.144.241 (talk) 10:29, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Internet Hall of Fame

The Internet Hall of Fame splits its inductees into three groups: Pioneers, Global Connectors, and Innovators. Looking just at the Pioneers group, most but not all of the members are included in the Wikipedia article List of Internet pioneers. The ones that aren't included are:

• Susan Estrada (2014)
• David Farber (2013)
• Howard Frank (2013)
• Frank Heart (2014)
• Kanchana Kanchanasut (2013)
• Bob Metcalfe (2013)
• Jun Murai (2013)
• Kees Neggers (2013)
• Rolf Nordhagen (2014)
• Nil Quaynor (2013)
• Glen Richart (2013)
• Werner Zorn (2013)

Should any of these folks be included in the Wikipedia article?

A few, but not really all that many of the folks in the Global Connectors and Innovators groups are included in the Wikipedia article. Are there others we should include?

-Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 02:55, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, I think Frank Heart is mainly important for his ARPANET work - I don't know if you include that as critical for the Internet (I would tend to), but I don't know how big a role in that he actually had. Bob Metcalfe is mostly important, I think, for his Ethernet work; I don't know if he had a big role in the PUP work; if he did, that would rate too, as that was an important precursor (although not as important as the ARPANET and CYCLADES). The rest, I don't really know. The ones I recognize are mostly mimportant for the role in helping spread the Internet (e.g. Jun Murai). Noel (talk) 18:22, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Hedy Lamarr?

Uh, no. I'm a great fan of Hedy Lamarr, who was in real life a quite remarkable human being. But, nevertheless: no, the internet really has nothing to do with the radio-scrambling technique she patented with George Antheil. You might make an argument that she was a wifi pioneer. but even there the argument is pretty weak (the frequency-hopping torpedo control was never implemented and the patent was pretty much forgotten; frequency hopping for data-communication (wifi) is done for a different purpose and was invented independently.) This article really needs to be vetted by somebody who knows technology, not just somebody who sees photo-memes on the internet. Michael-Zero (talk) 18:56, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

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John von Neumann

As much as he contributed to the foundation of modern computing, I have to wonder why John von Neumann is on this list. None of his contributions had anything to do with networked computing; if someone can find a source connecting him in a significant way to the birth internet, I could be persuaded to keep him. I'm removing him for now. --Blueclaw (talk) 19:26, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Include Philip Emeagwali

http://edition.cnn.com/fyi/interactive/specials/bhm/story/black.innovators.html

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/printout/0,29239,1963424_1963480_1963457,00.html

http://www.emeagwali.com/biography/Philip-Emeagwali-Inventions.pdf

See: "Was Philip Emeagwali a 'father of the Internet?'" at https://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/emeagwali.html --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 23:50, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

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Should Glenda Schroder be listed as an Internet pioneer?

Should Glenda Schroder be listed as an Internet pioneer? Her early contributions to e-mail and shells seem significant, but seem more related to more general developments in computing and operating systems then to the development of computer networking or the Internet. The words "Internet" and "network" do not appear in her Wikipedia article. She does not appear on the other Internet pioneer or Hall of Fame lists. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 13:20, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Having gotten no response to this question, I went ahead and removed her listing. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 02:02, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't Dave Farber be included?

He was Jon Postel's thesis advisor, among many other things. Co-founder of CSNET. Build a packet-switched local area network in the UK before Ethernet or the ARPAnet were created. ...etc... Gnuish (talk) 00:25, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'll add him. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 23:52, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Malcolm Turnbull

Surely, he deserves a mention, he invented the Internet in Australia, as testified by the prime minister of Australia Tony Abbott. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18owzYfvIcE — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.73.163.255 (talk) 13:10, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Robert Metcalfe should probably be added

Robert Metcalfe should probably be added as the person who minted "Ethernet" in 1973, headed the group for it at Xerox PARC and then pushed for its open use. He went on to found 3Com. RowanHawkins (talk) 01:26, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Agree. Also John Shoch, Ed Taft, and Butler Lampson. Whizz40 (talk) 14:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Here are my two cents. I worked on the early ARPANET. Vint Cerf was a fellow graduate student.

Butler Lampson is a Turing Award winner, very famous computer scientist. But his direct contribution to Internet development is negligible.

I have not heard of Ed Taft.

The Internet plaque has many more names on it including Yogan Dalal, Carl Sunshine, John Shoch, and Robert Metcalfe, etc. Vint Cerf's work on TCP design was assisted by his Ph.D. students, Yogan Dalal and Carl Sunshine.

Note that the three names, Cerf, Dalal, and Sunshine appear together on the plague in the top section "Birth of the Internet."

John Shoch and Metcalfe are in a lower section as associates. They were collaborators in Xerox Parc. Ethernet ended up years later to dominate the link layer as its most popular technology. (Metcalfe got Turing Award for it.) But the development of the Internet protocol layers above the link layer did not really depend on the link layer technology (Ethernet or something else). Helsaj (talk) 08:09, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Helsaj. Agree with adding Metcalfe and Shoch. What about David Boggs and Charles P. Thacker? Whizz40 (talk) 09:32, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I concur with adding Metcalfe in the list. Metcalfe was the main driver of Ethernet in Xerox Parc. Everyone else in Parc played a small role, except for Boggs, who was recruited by Metcalfe to do hardware. I "vote" YES for Metcalfe and, possibly, Boggs.

I "vote" NO for Thacker and Shoch. It is a stretch to put them in this list.

I check the Internet Hall of Fame list which is much longer. Of the four names, only Metcalfe is on that list.

Thacker is very well known for designing the Xerox Alto with, but nothing specific to the Internet. He was not an Internet researcher.

I found a Wiki page for Shoch. He had 4 papers, including a retrospective paper with others about Ethernet in 1982. No award of any kind. Helsaj (talk) 08:42, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The main rationale for including Metcalfe as an Internet pioneer (and Shoch on the Stanford plaque) is, I think, for contributions to early TCP design at the June 1973 INWG meeting by sharing insights from their early work on PUP (i.e., rather than the (later) work on Ethernet). Various sources support this. Whizz40 (talk) 09:24, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

In addition, Metclafe and Yogen Dalal (who is already listed on the article) proposed splitting the Transmission Control Program into two distinct protocols, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) as a reliable connection-oriented service and the Internet Protocol (IP) as connectionless service. See the article on Protocol Wars for more details. Whizz40 (talk) 09:40, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

David Boggs does get a mention in the Stanford TCP project completion report (but didn't make it onto the plaque): https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien151.txt. Whizz40 (talk) 19:59, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

References

list of Internet pioneers: Alpha order or Chronological order

This list has been in approximate chronological order for a very long time. The chronological order was changed by Natg 19 to Alpha order on May 6, 2024. I strongly disagree. I have done work on the ARPANET and Internet since the early days of the ARPANET. (I am old.)

The previous chronological order provides a lot of information about the gradual development of the ARPANET by pioneers over decades. Changing the list to an Alpha order basically throws away all the important history information.

I hit the "undo" button of Natg 19 May 6 edit for this page earlier today.

I was immediately overruled by Natg 19, who changed the list back to the Alpha order.

I am new to editing Wikipedia. I signed up for Wikipedia mainly to make this change.

Please forgive me for not knowing about the methods for giving Wikipedia referees a heads up with an explanation. I finally did sign up for a User page earlier and still learning how to use. Then I found this discussion page.

I hope Natg 19 sees this explanation and change the List of Internet pioneers to its earlier chronological order. Thanks. My apologies if I offended any one. Helsaj (talk) 07:19, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I looked over the list of inventors with many hundreds of entries and the List of pioneers in computer science with about two hundred entries. For these very long lists, Alpha order is highly useful for finding someone; also different entries are about a different inventions/contributions.

The list of Internet pioneers has only 37 entries. This is a small enough list that does not require an Alpha order to find someone. Also each entry represents the contribution(s) of someone over a subinterval in time, from the 1960s to the 1990s, towards building today's Internet. The previous chronological listing of pioneers preserves the time history of pioneers and their collaborative contributions towards the same goal of an efficient, functional, and secure Internet. Helsaj (talk) 05:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree with chronological order for the reasons discussed above. Whizz40 (talk) 14:52, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I will add a note clarifying that this is a chronological order. When I came upon this page, it seemed to be a haphazard ordering, so alphabetical made sense to me. But as it is opposed by the two of you, I will leave it as is. Natg 19 (talk) 19:14, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello, Whizz40,

I looked over your recent, substantial contributions/additions to the list. I will read it more carefully later.

But one name that sticks out as "unqualified for the main list" is "Adrian Stokes". He is listed on the Stanford plague along with Peter Kirstein. His contribution to email in UK is not enough. Email was created first by Ray Tomlinson in 1971 for ARPANET several years ago.

In this case and for many others, being on the Stanford Plague is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Note that there are many names on the plague which are not on the main list.

I suggest moving Stokes from the main list to the list at the end, after the Stanford plague, which you created. Regards! Helsaj (talk) 04:51, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Ray Tomlinson is on the list, I added him. I've expanded Tomlinson's and Postel's profiles regarding the invention of email - I've covered this extensively on other articles and just getting around to covering it here. As for who's on the list, as editors, we could endlessly debate subjective decisions. The article now has criteria in the lead. As a tertiary source, I've based this list on the union of four primary sources that are specific to the invention of the Internet. Then I've highlighted in the lead where those sources intersect. Readers will know that some people on the list contributed much more than others and can discern this by reading the article. The benefit of having defined criteria is editors don't need to debate every inclusion/exclusion decision and readers can understand the basis of the list and form their own views while reading the article. Hopefully this approach gains consensus here. I've started to add some more names from the Stanford Internet plaque. As discussed above, the lead is written so that people who don't meet any of the four criteria, and are still relevant to the article topic, can go in the final section of the article, after the Stanford Internet plaque. 07:59, 12 July 2024 (UTC)