Hans-Werner Braun -- 3 July 1992 -- B-I
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I assume many of you remember the days, so many years ago, when
the IAB was a group working on behalf of DARPA to give them input
on things happening and on future research. A prominent Task
Force (there were no working groups then), was the Gateway and
And DataStructure (GADS, I *think* I got the name right) Task
Force, then chaired by Dave Mills. Gosh, when was that? 84-85ish?
I attended only their last meeting, by invitation of Dave Mills.
Quite small group then, 15 to 20 people or so.

The GADS was just about to split into the IETF (after having
called INENG first) and the INARC (Internet Architecture Task
Force). The INENG/IETF was chaired by Mike Corrigan, INARC by
Dave Mills, both reporting directly to the IAB, and both quite
small (still 15-20 or so people then, as there was alot of people
overlap). Why was the GADS split then? There is a serious and
everlasting controversy about immediate engineering concerns, as
well as long term, research and architecture. The GADS tended to
not work efficiently in both areas. Possibly because there are
too many shades of gray? So, INENG/IETF were still quite small
and fit into a small conference room. I remember even Scott Brim
and myself taking a bit of a risk dragging Milo into his first of
such meeting (conveniently happening at SRI at that time), as it
was quite an invitation-only group.

At some time it became clear that DARPA had some domestic
constituents for networking, particularly from the NSFNET,
including regional networks. I remember that I (and may be
others) had a bit of a hard time to convince the IETF to allow
the NSFNET constituents to be represented. It finally resulted in
a small group of people meeting with Mike Corrigan in the
Pentagon to discuss the issue to allow for the broadening of the
INENG/IETF. I think this included (besides Mike Corrigan) Mike
St.Johns (then with DCA), Phill Gross (then Mike C.'s assistant
on INENG/IETF matters), Scott Brim and myself. Sorry if I left
someone out here, but if at all, it could only have been one or
two people more. After all the discussion before, I was surprised
at how easy of a meeting this was. Mike C. essential just said
ok, fine, or something like that.