|
|
For Jonathan B. Postel
A member of the creative computer science community that innovated the foundations of the Internet in the 1960s through the '90s, Jon Postel was a modest man whose devotion to quality helped set high goals for Internet standards and practices. He was the first member of the Internet Society, and he served as the Request for Comments (RFCs) editor for nearly 30 years, demanding excellence as drafts were moved through the open-consensus processes of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other contributors. He wrote or coauthored more than 200 RFCs. His technical contributions were key to the foundation of simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), the e-mail protocol, and the Domain Name System (DNS), the basis for all search and identity online. He served as the administrator for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority until his death in 1998. He is seen as the archetype of an Internet pioneer, and his personal integrity still inspires many. One of his RFCs, 793, is known as Postel's law, or the “robustness principle”; it includes the line “be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others.”
A member of the creative computer science community that innovated the foundations of the Internet in the 1960s through the '90s, Jon Postel was a modest man whose devotion to quality helped set high goals for Internet standards and practices. He was the first member of the Internet Society, and he served as the Request for Comments (RFCs) editor for nearly 30 years, demanding excellence as drafts were moved through the open-consensus processes of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other contributors. He wrote or coauthored more than 200 RFCs. His technical contributions were key to the foundation of simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), the e-mail protocol, and the Domain Name System (DNS), the basis for all search and identity online. He served as the administrator for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority until his death in 1998. He is seen as the archetype of an Internet pioneer, and his personal integrity still inspires many. One of his RFCs, 793, is known as Postel's law, or the “robustness principle”; it includes the line “be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others.”