Jon Postel

Jonathan Bruce Postel (August 6, 1943 - October 16, 1998) made many significant contributions to Internet standards. He is principally known for being the Editor of the RFC document series from the IETF; he also initiated and ran the number assignment clearinghouse, the IANA, from its inception to his death, He wrote and edited many important RFC's, including RFC's 0791-0793, which define the basic protocols of the Internet protocol suite, and RFC 2223.

He earned a Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA in 1974. He was the first member of the Internet Society and he also served on the Internet Architecture Board and the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society.

His contributions to building the Internet were regarded by his peers as being so great that an RFC was written in his memory (see External links below). This is no trivial thing given that between 1969 and February 2002, only 3,240 RFCs were published. He himself co-authored more than 200 RFCs.

RFC 793 includes a robustness principle much quoted as "Postel's Law": "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others."

External links

• RFC 793
• The Postel Center
• http://www.isoc.org/postel/
• RFC 2468, "I remember IANA"