The InterNIC became Network Solutions when Al Gore invented the commercial Internet - an event we all remember.
Yeah the Al Gore thing was the source of endless laughter. :)
To be fair:
a) He never actually claimed to have invented the Internet
b) What he DID claim, which was totally correct, was that he was responsible in large part for the funding that brought the Internet to the public
I disagree, very loudly.
There's nothing to "disagree" with. Whether or not Gore was instrumental in funding vital things like the backbone, or he wasn't. Facts are like math, not literature: you don't "believe" them or not; they just ARE.
Having built and managed much of the infrastructure for one of the first public ISPs, I can categorically state that we did not receive one red cent from Al Gore, the federal government, or anyone else other than ourselves. We lived on ramen noodles and lots of couch-sharing, and built it all starting from a pair of used Sun-3 systems up to the third largest ISP on the planet. ZERO help from Al Gore.
The funding that his efforts resulted in went primarily to the growth of backbone services
...Without which ISPs would only have "nets", not "inter(s)". :(
it was well on its way and would've happened without any of that.
THAT is open to opinion. Would it have happened anyway without federal funding? I don't know.