Working with Jon, Tribute delivered at UCLA, October 30, 1998
A personal tribute to Jon Postel, the Internet's custodian and visionary editor.
Cohen, D., "Working with Jon, Tribute delivered at UCLA, October 30, 1998", RFC 2441, DOI 10.17487/RFC2441, November 1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2441>.
@misc{rfc2441,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 2441,
howpublished = {RFC 2441},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC2441},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2441},
author = {D. Cohen},
title = {{Working with Jon, Tribute delivered at UCLA, October 30, 1998}},
pagetotal = 6,
year = 1998,
month = nov,
} RFC text
Contents
Network Working Group D. Cohen
Request for Comments: 2441 Myricom
Category: Informational November 1998
Working with Jon
Tribute delivered at UCLA, October 30, 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.
Tribute
In 1973, after doing interactive flight simulation over the ARPAnet,
I joined ISI and applied that experience to interactive speech over
the ARPAnet.
The communication requirements for realtime speech were unique (more
like UDP than like TCP). This got me involved in the Network Working
Group, and I started another project at ISI called "Internet
Concepts".
In 1977 Steve Crocker, who was then at ISI, told me that Jon was
willing to join us, and that Jon will be a great addition to my
Internet Concepts project. Steve was right on both accounts.
Jon and I worked together from 1977 until 1993 when I left ISI.
According to ISI's management Jon worked for me for several years,
and I worked for him for several years. In reality we never worked
for each other (nor for ISI), we always worked together, to advance
the technology that we believed in. Over most of those 16 years we
had our offices together, and always worked with each other, even
when we worked on totally different projects.
Jon was always most pleasant to work with. He was most caring both
about the project, and about the individuals on the team. He was
always full of great intentions and humor. Jon was always ready for
mischiefs, one way or another. He was always game to hack something.
When I worked on the MOSIS project, in 1980, users submitted their
VLSI designs to us by e-mail. For several defense contractors,
getting access to the ARPAnet was too complex. We suggested that
they would use a commercial e-mail service, like TELEmail, instead.
Then we had the problem of getting all the e-mail systems to
interoperate, since none of them was willing to interoperate with the
others. Jon and I solved this problem during one long night of
hacking. This hack later became the mail-tunnel that provided the
service known as "InterMail", for passing e-mail between various
non-cooperating systems, including systems like MCImail and IEEE's
COMPmail.
I'm sure that Jon was so enthusiastic to work with me on it for two
reasons:
* Such interoperability among heterogeneous e-mail systems
was our religion, with no tolerance for separatism;
* We definitely were not supposed to do it.
Jon hated bureaucracy and silly rules, as Cary Thomas so well
described. Too bad that we lived in an environment with so many
rules.
We started Los-Nettos without lawyers and without formal contracts.
Handshakes were good enough. At that time several other regional
networks started around the country. Most of them were interested in
expansion, in glory, and in fortune. Jon was interested only in
getting the problem solved.
This was Jon's priority, both at work, and in his life.
I find it funny to read in the papers that Jon was the director of
IANA. Jon was IANA. Much more important, Jon was the corporate
memory of the Internet, and also the corporate style and the
technical taste of the Internet.
Jon was an authority without bureaucracy. No silly rules! Jon's
authority was not derived from any management structure. It was due
to his personality, his dedication, deep understanding, and demanding
technical taste and style.
Jon set the standards for both the Internet standards and for the
Internet standardization process. Jon turned the RFCs into a central
piece of the standardization process.
One can also read that Jon was the editor of the RFC, and may think
that Jon checked only the grammar or the format of the RFCs. Nothing
could be further from the truth, not that he did not check it, but in
addition, being the corporate memory, Jon had indicated many times to
authors that earlier work had treated the same subject, and that
their work would be improved by learning about that earlier work.
For the benefits of those in the audience who are either too young or
too old to remember let me recall some recent history:
The Internet protocols (mainly IP, TCP, UDP, FTP, Telnet, FTP, and
even SNMP) were defined and documented in their RFCs. DoD adopted
them and announced a date by which all of DoD units would have to use
TCP/IP. They even translated RFC791 from Jon's English to proper
Militarese.
However, all the other countries (i.e., their governments and PTTs)
in the world joined the ISO wagon, the X.25 based suite of OSI
protocols. The US government joined them and defined GOSIP. All the
large computer companies (from IBM and DEC down) announced their
future plans to join the GOSIP bandwagon. DoD totally capitulated
and denounced the "DoD unique protocols" and was seeking ways to
forget all about them, spending million of dollars on GOSIP and
X.500.
Against them, on the Internet side, there was a very small group of
young Davids. The OSI camp had its prestige, but we had working
systems, a large community of devotees, and properly documented
protocols that allowed integration of the TCP/IP suite into every
UNIX system, such as in every SUN workstation.
Against the strict laws in Europe, their universities developed an
underground of Internet connections. One could get from California
to the university in Rome, for example, for example, by going first
over the Internet across the US to the east coast, then to the UK,
then using some private lines to France, then to CERN in Switzerland,
and from there to Rome - while breaking the laws of all those
countries with every packet.
Meanwhile, in the states, Academia, and the research communities,
never knew about GOSIP.
The Internet, against all the conventional wisdom, grew without
anyone being in charge, without central control, and without any
central planning.
The war between the ISO and the TCP/IP camps never took place. One
camp turned out to be a no show.
What made it all possible was the wise selection of what to
standardize and what not to, and the high quality of the standards in
a series of living documents.
Our foundation and infrastructure of standards was the secret weapon
that won the war. Jon created it, using the RFC mechanism initiated
by Steve Crocker. It was Jon who immediately realized their
importance, and the need for someone to act as the curator, and
volunteered.
The lightning speed with which Microsoft joined the Internet was not
possible without the quality of the existing standards that were so
well documented.
During the transition from ARPA, through the NSF, to the commercial
world there was a point in which the trivial funding required for the
smooth operation of editing and distributing the RFCs was in doubt.
At that time the prospect of not having funds to run this operation
was very real. Finally the problem was solved and the process
suffered no interruption.
What most of the involved agencies and managers did not know is that
there was never a danger of any interruption. Jon would have done it
even with no external funding. If they did not pay him to do it, he
would have paid them to let him do it. For him it was not a job, it
was labor of love.
Jon never joined the PowerPoint generation. Jon always believed that
the content was the only thing that matters. Hand written slides
were good enough. Color and logos were distractions, a necessary
evil in certain occasions, not the style of choice.
Jon defined quality by counting interesting ideas, not points per
inch.
When fancy formatting creeped into the Internet community, Jon
resisted the temptation to allow fancy formats for RFCs. Instead, he
insisted on them being in ASCII, easy to e-mail, guaranteed to be
readable anywhere in the world. The instant availability and
usability of RFCs was much more important to him than how fancy they
looked.
The Internet was not just a job for Jon. It was his hobby and his
mission in life.
We will miss Jon, who was for the Internet its corporate memory, its
corporate style, and its corporate taste.
I will miss him even more as a colleague and a friend.
In Summary:
* Jon was pleasant, fun/funny, and unselfish.
He was full of mischief, adventure, humor, and caring.
He was devoted to his work, to the Internet, and to the
people who worked with him.
* It was great working together and having neighboring
offices for 16 years.
* Jon set the standards for the Internet standards.
* Jon was the Internet's corporate memory, the corporate taste,
and the corporate style.
* Jon was an authority without bureaucracy.
* Jon was an Internet Missionary.
* Jon was a great friend that I will miss for ever.
Security Considerations
Security issues are not relevant to this Tribute.
Author's Address
Danny Cohen
Myricom
EMail: cohen@myri.com
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AI ELI5
On this page
§1A Partnership in Internet Work
RFC 2441 is not a technical specification, but a personal tribute to Jon Postel delivered by Danny Cohen at UCLA on October 30, 1998. Cohen and Postel worked together at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) for 16 years, from 1977 to 1993, on fundamental Internet projects.
Cohen describes their relationship as a true collaboration, not a hierarchy. They shared offices, worked on the same problems, and supported each other's efforts to advance Internet technology, even when they pursued different projects. Their work together left a lasting mark on Internet standards and protocols.
This is a speech about a friend who was very important to the Internet. The friend and the speaker worked together for 16 years at a research center, always helping each other.
§2Technical Collaboration and Innovation
Cohen recalls specific projects undertaken with Postel. In 1973, Cohen had done interactive flight simulation over the ARPAnet and brought that experience to ISI. He then worked on interactive speech over the ARPAnet, which led to the formation of the Network Working Group and the "Internet Concepts" project.
One memorable collaboration was solving email interoperability in 1980 during the MOSIS project. When commercial mail systems refused to interoperate, Cohen and Postel spent a long night of hacking that created the mail-tunnel technology behind "InterMail," enabling email exchange between incompatible systems like MCImail and IEEE's COMPmail.
Cohen emphasizes that they worked on these projects not because they were assigned to, but because the problems were worth solving and interoperability was their shared conviction.
They worked on hard problems together, like making email systems talk to each other. They did this work because they believed it was the right thing to do, even when they were not supposed to.
§3Postel's Role in Standards and the RFC Process
Cohen emphasizes that Postel did not merely edit RFCs for grammar or format. As the corporate memory of the Internet, Postel repeatedly directed RFC authors to earlier related work, helping them improve their specifications by building on what had come before.
Postel served as the IANA director and set the standards for Internet standardization itself. He transformed RFCs from informal documents into the central mechanism for developing Internet standards. Cohen credits Postel's vision and quality standards—not bureaucracy or politics—with enabling the Internet to succeed where other competing technologies like OSI and GOSIP failed.
Postel believed in substance over form. He resisted fancy formatting and insisted on plain ASCII RFCs that could be emailed and read anywhere in the world. For him, content and interesting ideas mattered far more than visual presentation.
Jon was in charge of the rule book for the Internet. He made sure the rules were good by telling people to learn from older rules. He said the rules should be simple and clear, not fancy. He cared about good ideas, not pretty pictures.
§4Authority Without Bureaucracy
Cohen describes Postel as an authority without bureaucracy. Postel's authority did not come from a management structure or title. It stemmed from his personality, his deep understanding of Internet technology, his unwavering dedication, and his demanding technical taste and style.
This was essential during the 1980s and 1990s when the Internet faced competition from government-mandated standards like OSI and the US government's GOSIP (Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile). While those efforts emphasized prestige and mandates, the Internet community—guided by Postel's judgment and quality standards—had working systems and properly documented protocols.
Cohen notes that Los-Nettos, a regional network initiative, succeeded without lawyers or formal contracts—just handshakes. Postel was interested only in solving the problem, not in expansion, glory, or fortune.
Jon was a leader, but not because he had a fancy title or rules to follow. People listened to him because he was smart, cared deeply, and always made good choices. He did not like unnecessary rules or fancy meetings.
§5Character and Legacy
Cohen remembers Postel as pleasant, funny, and unselfish. He was full of humor, mischief, and a spirit of adventure. Postel cared deeply about the people he worked with and about the projects they undertook.
The Internet was not a job for Postel but a hobby and a mission in life. He served as the corporate memory, the corporate style, and the corporate taste of the Internet itself. When fancy formatting began to creep into the Internet community, Postel resisted it, insisting instead on simplicity and substance.
Cohen ends the tribute with a simple summary: Postel was an Internet missionary. He was a great friend who is deeply missed. He set the standards not just for Internet protocols but for the entire standardization process and for how the Internet community conducts itself.
Jon was kind, funny, and cared about people. He loved the Internet so much that it was his life's mission. He believed in doing good work and being honest. People will always remember him.