;( |o| >Delivered-To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com |o| >X-Sender: farber@158.130.12.3 |o| >Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 07:28:40 -0400 |o| >To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com |o| >From: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu> |o| >Subject: IP: Remembrance/postel |o| >Mime-Version: 1.0 |o| >Sender: owner-ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com |o| >Precedence: list |o| >Reply-To: farber@cis.upenn.edu |o| > |o| > |o| >I, and others I fear, have spent a sleepless night after hearing of the |o| >death of Jon Postel last night. This morning there was a note in my mail |o| >box from Vint Cerf that said many of the things I feel at this time. I |o| >asked him for permission to send on which he granted. |o| > |o| >I also remember Jon. I was his primary thesis advisor along with Jerry |o| >Estrin and I remember with fond memories the months spent closely working |o| >with Jon while his eager mind developed the ideas in back of what was a |o| >pioneering thesis that founded the area of protocol verification. Since I |o| >was at UC Irvine and Jon at UCLA we used to meet in the morning prior to |o| >my ride to UCI at a Pancake House in Santa Monica for breakfast and the |o| >hard work of developing a thesis. I gained a great respect for Jon then |o| >and 10 pounds of weight. |o| > |o| >I will miss him greatly. Jon was my second Ph.D. student. The first, |o| >Philip Merlin, also died way before his time. |o| > |o| >Dave |o| > |o| >________________________________________________________________________ |o| > |o| > October 17, 1998 |o| > |o| >I REMEMBER IANA |o| > |o| >Vint Cerf |o| > |o| >A long time ago, in a network, far far away, a great adventure took place= |o| =85 |o| > |o| >Out of the chaos of new ideas for communication, the experiments, the |o| >tentative designs, and crucible of testing, there emerged a cornucopia of |o| >networks. Beginning with the ARPANET, an endless stream of networks |o| >evolved, and ultimately were interlinked to become the Internet. Someone |o| >had to keep track of all the protocols, the identifiers, networks and |o| >addresses and ultimately the names of all the things in the networked |o| >universe. And someone had to keep track of all the information that |o| >erupted with volcanic force from the intensity of the debates and |o| >discussions and endless invention that has continued unabated for 30 |o| >years. That someone was Jonathan B. Postel, our Internet Assigned Numbers |o| >Authority, friend, engineer, confidant, leader, icon, and now, first of |o| >the giants to depart from our midst. |o| > |o| >Jon, our beloved IANA, is gone. Even as I write these words I cannot quite |o| >grasp this stark fact. We had almost lost him once before in 1991. Surely |o| >we knew he was at risk as are we all. But he had been our rock, the |o| >foundation on which our every web search and email was built, always there |o| >to mediate the random dispute, to remind us when our documentation did not |o| >do justice to its subject, to make difficult decisions with apparent ease, |o| >and to consult when careful consideration was needed. We will survive our |o| >loss and we will remember. He has left a monumental legacy for all |o| >Internauts to contemplate. Steadfast service for decades, moving when |o| >others seemed paralyzed, always finding the right course in a complex |o| >minefield of technical and sometimes political obstacles. |o| > |o| >Jon and I went to the same high school, Van Nuys High, in the San Fernando |o| >Valley north of Los Angeles. But we were in different classes and I really |o| >didn=92t know him then. Our real meeting came at UCLA when we became a par= |o| t |o| >of a group of graduate students working for Prof. Leonard Kleinrock on the |o| >ARPANET project. Steve Crocker was another of the Van Nuys crowd who was |o| >part of the team and led the development of the first host-host protocols |o| >for the ARPANET. When Steve invented the idea of the Request for Comments |o| >series, Jon became the instant editor. When we needed to keep track of all |o| >the hosts and protocol identifiers, Jon volunteered to be the Numbers Czar |o| >and later the IANA once the Internet was in place. |o| > |o| >Jon was a founding member of the Internet Architecture Board and served |o| >continuously from its founding to the present. He was the FIRST individual |o| >member of the Internet Society I know, because he and Steve Wolff raced to |o| >see who could fill out the application forms and make payment first and |o| >Jon won. He served as a trustee of the Internet Society. He was the |o| >custodian of the .US domain, a founder of the Los Nettos Internet service, |o| >and, by the way, managed the networking research division of USC |o| >Information Sciences Institute. |o| > |o| >Jon loved the outdoors. I know he used to enjoy backpacking in the high |o| >Sierras around Yosemite. Bearded and sandaled, Jon was our resident |o| >hippie-patriarch at UCLA. He was a private person but fully capable of |o| >engaging photon torpedoes and going to battle stations in a good |o| >engineering argument. And he could be stubborn beyond all expectation. He |o| >could have outwaited the Sphinx in a staring contest, I think. |o| > |o| >Jon inspired loyalty and steadfast devotion among his friends and his |o| >colleagues. For me, he personified the words =93selfless service.=94 For |o| >nearly 30 years, Jon has served us all, taken little in return, indeed |o| >sometimes receiving abuse when he should have received our deepest |o| >appreciation. It was particularly gratifying at the last Internet Society |o| >meeting in Geneva to see Jon receive the Silver Medal of the International |o| >Telecommunications Union. It is an award generally reserved for Heads of |o| >State but I can think of no one more deserving of global recognition for |o| >his contributions. |o| > |o| >While it seems almost impossible to avoid feeling an enormous sense of |o| >loss, as if a yawning gap in our networked universe had opened up and |o| >swallowed our friend, I must tell you that I am comforted as I contemplate |o| >what Jon has wrought. He leaves a legacy of edited documents that tell our |o| >collective Internet story, including not only the technical but also the |o| >poetic and whimsical as well. He completed the incorporation of a |o| >successor to his service as IANA and leaves a lasting legacy of service to |o| >the community in that role. His memory is rich and vibrant and will not |o| >fade from our collective consciousness. =93What would Jon have done?=94 we |o| >will think, as we wrestle in the days ahead with the problems Jon kept so |o| >well tamed for so many years. |o| > |o| >There will almost surely be many memorials to Jon=92s monumental service t= |o| o |o| >the Internet Community. As current chairman of the Internet Society, I |o| >pledge to establish an award in Jon=92s name to recognize long-standing |o| >service to the community, the Jonathan B. Postel Service Award, which is |o| >awarded to Jon posthumously as its first recipient. |o| > |o| >If Jon were here, I am sure he would urge us not to mourn his passing but |o| >to celebrate his life and his contributions. He would remind us that there |o| >is still much work to be done and that we now have the responsibility and |o| >the opportunity to do our part. I doubt that anyone could possibly |o| >duplicate his record, but it stands as a measure of one man=92s astonishin= |o| g |o| >contribution to a community he knew and loved. |o|----------------------------------------------------------------------|o| |o| bryan s. blank (203)-351-1178 voice |o| |o| senior systems analyst (203)-351-1186 fax |o| |o| discovernet, incorporated (203)-979-5126 emerg |o|