[SATLUG] OT: Walmart Selling Linux PCs/ Right-Left paradigm

[Al Castanoli]

On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 12:48 -0500, Hector Bojorquez wrote:
> It was me...
> I said that Wal-Mart don't get my money cause of their right-wing support.
> I don't think we can ALWAYS keep politics out.
> And just for fun...
> I , for one, DO credit Al Gore with helping to "create the initiatives" that
> led the Internet as we know it.
> As Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn (inventors of TCP/IP) said
> 
> "As the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core
> protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP
> Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No
> other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution
> over a longer period of time. Last year the Vice President made a
> straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the
> United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We
> don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he
> "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that
> while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and
> beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is
> that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most
> people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far
> back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed
> telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement
> of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the
> potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just
> improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten,
> now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept"
> 
> Had it been left up to Republicans who don't like funding research that they
> don't see  IMMEDIATE or MILITARY benefits... well.. many of us wouldn't have
> Information technology jobs.
> 
> So yeah... Sometimes it is just FINE to talk about politics.

I guess historical corrections in the media have worked... Much of the
early work on the current Internet were done on milnet.  The move from
the standard of NCP to TCP/IP was only possible at first because of
government funding early development on the IMP.  Then, before the
InterNIC was farmed out to Network Solutions, one of the greatest
contributors in terms of funding and full time computer scientists and
network engineers was General Atomics (part of what the media calls the
military industrial complex). General Atomics stepped away from the
InterNIC because of media scrutiny of their operations.  Without General
Atomic's support, the NSF could no longer afford to administer it, and
contracted .com and .net domains out to Network Solutions.  If you think
that was an improvement over the original InterNIC, I guess you weren't
managing domains back then and having to deal with what we
affectionately termed notwork solutions.

The folks I worked for when milnet was folded into the Internet were a
bunch of egghead scientists and engineers, and they formed the original
Internet Engineering Task Force. We didn't see many politicians on the
operations room floor at the time.

Given all the scientific inaccuracies in "An Inconvenient Truth", it
appears the Nobel prize was given for political reasons more than for
having actually accomplished anything.

I respect Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, but I think they're giving too much
credit to Gore. 

Al Castanoli