CDR: Re: I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story

[David Honig]

At 11:05 PM 10/18/00 -0400, Tim May wrote:
>At 10:45 PM -0400 10/18/00, David Honig wrote:
>>Its quite simple.  In 1995 MS released a version of Windoze which
>>included a TCP/IP stack by default.  Previously you had to acquire
>>one and figure out how to install it.

>I don't buy this at all. Maybe there is some subtlety I am missing
completely.

No subtlety, just an observation that non-techies found it much
easier to use the protocol since it came 'bundled'.  Imagine
all the online hausfrau trying to install a packet driver, shims, 
debugging it... 

>Which caused which, a default TCP/IP stack in Windows 95 or Netscape 1.0?

My point is that MS made Netscape's life easier by having a stack already
deployed.  And clearly Netscape made the that stack (and the computer) more
useful, at least easier to use.

And clearly the NSF giving up control allowed the current mess.

>As a Mac user, it was the availability of Mosaic and Netscape which 
>altered the landscape. The TCP/IP stack junk was just behind the 
>scenes machinery which various vendors were then racing to provide.
>
>Saying the modern Net age started when Microsoft provided a TCP/IP 
>stack seems overly wonkish.

I'm well aware of the dangers of saying anything positive about
MS in a public forum.  Maybe they'll be charged under antitrust law
by all those stack-vendors who went belly-up when MS bundled 
extra functionality into the OS.  Just like when Weitek sues
Intel for bundling their FP biz into Intel's CPUs.