[vcf-midatlantic] oldest email address in the club

[Evan Koblentz]

>>>> 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.