Richard J. Sexton quoted from Leiner et al., "A Brief History of the
Internet", which reminded me of its particularly prescient final paragraph:
"The most pressing question for the future of the Internet is not how the
technology will change, but how the process of change and evolution itself
will be managed. As this paper describes, the architecture of the Internet
has always been driven by a core group of designers, but the form of that
group has changed as the number of interested parties has grown. With the
success of the Internet has come a proliferation of stakeholders -
stakeholders now with an economic as well as an intellectual investment in
the network. We now see, in the debates over control of the domain name
space and the form of the next generation IP addresses, a struggle to find
the next social structure that will guide the Internet in the future. The
form of that structure will be harder to find, given the large number of
concerned stake-holders. At the same time, the industry struggles to find
the economic rationale for the large investment needed for the future
growth, for example to upgrade residential access to a more suitable
technology. If the Internet stumbles, it will not be because we lack for
technology, vision, or motivation. It will be because we cannot set a
direction and march collectively into the future."
Indeed.
Craig McTaggart
Graduate Student
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
