1972
Jon Postel begins Internet numbering stewardship
Jon Postel took on socket-number and protocol assignment duties in 1972 — the functions later formalized as IANA, though that name was not used until the 1980s.
What it was for
Postel's stewardship kept the internet's naming and numbering coherent as it grew from ARPANETAdvanced Research Projects Agency Network — the U.S. research network that pioneered packet switching and became a precursor to the internet. research to a global network. He was the RFC Editor and IANA administrator until his death in 1998.
People
- Jon Postel — maintainer
Why it's here
Postel's quiet governance made decentralized internet growth possible.
Why it mattered
IANA assignments let independent networks interoperate without a central authority.
What it solved
Growing packet networks needed consistent protocol numbers and document editing.
Media
ImageJon PostelCarl Malamud, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Related
- ARPANET switches to TCP/IPJanuary 1, 1983
- DNS standardizedNovember 1983