Dear Libertarian Thinking ITers,

[Yavin4]

Before you spout your Ron-Paul-Ayn-Rand tripe about how awful government is, that it cannot do anything, and that it played no part in your success in IT, please do me a favor and research the GOVERNMENT AGENCY, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which was renamed Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Please thoroughly research what this agency did because without it, you would not have the career that you have now.

That is all.

[MineralMan]

1. Yeah, well...what about LINUX? Open source foevah!

Oh, wait...ARPA and DARPA were kinda open source themselves, if I remember correctly.

As you were...

[nemo137]

6. Kicked off by a socialist Finn, though

and isn't the whole idea of open-source sort of pinko, anyway?

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. And then look up Tim Berners-Lee's employers for good measure (nt)

[Yavin4]

4. Tim Berners-Lee Worked for... *GASP*!

Socialist Europe! That would give them the vapors.

[FarCenter]

5. Actually, it was DARPA before it was ARPA, briefly, in the '90s

And it was successful because it provided money and resources for the research without giving a whole lot of direction to the researchers. The researchers pretty much followed their own opinions about what were the promising approaches.

It's not like the government was trying to create the Internet.

Same with Sir Tim's creation of the web. It's not what CERN was mainly supposed to do.

[Yavin4]

8. According to Wiki

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...Its original name was simply Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), but it was renamed DARPA (for Defense) during March 1972, then renamed ARPA again during February 1993, and then renamed DARPA again during March 1996.

Concerning information processing, DARPA made great progress, initially through its support of the development of time-sharing (all modern operating systems rely on concepts invented for the Multics system, developed by a cooperation between Bell Labs, General Electric and MIT, which DARPA supported by funding Project MAC at MIT with an initial two-million-dollar grant), and later through the evolution of the ARPANET (the first wide-area packet switching network), Packet Radio Network, Packet Satellite Network and ultimately, the Internet and research in the artificial intelligence (AI) fields of speech recognition and signal processing. DARPA also funded the development of the Douglas Engelbart's NLS computer system and the Aspen Movie Map, which was probably the first hypermedia system and an important precursor of virtual reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA


Next time, please do your research. Thank you.

[FarCenter]

9. Well, by the time of Internet (1974) it was DARPA

And a general purpose commercial packet switching network was not what DoD had in mind.

Read the section "DARPA as a Model". The program managers have a lot of lattitude to fund research that has only tenuous connection to defined DoD needs. DARPA has funded a lot of basic research.

[Yavin4]

10. So, We're Splitting Hairs Now?

First, it started off as ARPA, and then changed its name to DARPA. End of story. You are wrong.

Second, 3M wasn't trying to invent post-it notes, but it funded various other research projects that produced it. Did 3M not file a patent on it because it was not the intent of the research? Fuck no.

Good night.

[Jim Sagle]

7. Any ITer who's a libertarian is a goddamn bozo to begin with.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

12. Many still are and will remain so

The internet is basically clumps of private property cooperating to their mutual interest as needed. The attempt by some to have government interference, including that proposed by the Obama administration is infuriating. That of Australia, the EU, China and others totally unacceptable. It will be interesting when Internet II comes along with its blocking of anonymous behaviors and hooks for government controls and law enforcement.

[Jim Sagle]

15. See #11 for a crushing rejoinder.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. Nothing crushing there,

Many IT professionals separate their net ideals from work or politics. We find those who can't curious and at times dangerous, all China.

The net is losing freedoms daily, those who know it best, miss them most of all.

[Jim Sagle]

17. Those who miss their outsourced and insourced jobs are mostly too hungry to follow Randian BS.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. How little you seem to know about geek ethics and motivations

Governments like China and the current administration are limiting and try to control the net and the flow of information. That is a political concern in and of itself and is separate from employment for just about every IT bubba who understand how it is supposed to work.

[Jim Sagle]

19. How little YOU seem to know about Democrats, employment, personal finance, or Americans in general.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. Considering, the I do/qualify as all of the above, your comments are specious

[Jim Sagle]

21. Your comments qualify as vacuous corporatist tripe with a side of DLC hogwash.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. Your inability to discuss things in this subthread and dependence on ad hominums speaks louder than

posts about your lack of a legitimate position.

Welcome to the bozo bin, I rarely use it, but from what I have seen you are clearly in many

[Jim Sagle]

23. Ain't much to discuss, Gus.

[JoeyT]

11. The numbers of libertarian ITers has decreased drastically

now that their jobs are being outsourced at an absurd rate.
Suddenly they think the government should be making some laws.
Funny how that worked.

[Starry Messenger]

14. +1000

[berni_mccoy]

13. I remember the year the Internet was opened for public and commercial use.

I was working at a VAX computer center for a local college and we were bringing up our first DECnet node. From the system console, I could see other nearby universities and colleges systems and, with the proper credentials, could login to their systems. I could also see a network called ARPAnet, which at the time, I had no idea what it was. I think I gave away just how old I am.