The first IETF meeting, 16-17 January 1986, in San Diego, California, had 21 attendees. That same year, IBM unveiled the PC Convertible (the first laptop computer), the 386 series of microprocessor was introduced by Intel, and the Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP) was defined for e-mail transfer. How times have changed! This week’s meeting in Singapore—IETF 100—is expected to draw more than 1,000 people from around the world to discuss the very latest in Internet standards and protocols.
But the IETF is about more than meetings. We’re a robust online community of network
designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of Internet
architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. Our efforts help move the Internet forward, provide “rough consensus and running code” to produce high-quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.
The proceedings from that first meeting show threads that continue today. And we can anticipate that the next 100 meetings will further our current work on IPv6, the Internet of Things, video codecs, security solutions, and more… in addition to emerging technologies we haven’t even thought of yet.
Please join us in Singapore as we celebrate the successes we’ve had so far and look forward to continuing our mission to make the Internet work better.
From the proceedings from the first IETF, https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01.pdf.