David Farber
lorenetworking
The organiser of CSNET, and one half of the 1981 agreement that let one network's traffic cross another's without anyone counting it.
CSNET existed because most computer science departments were not eligible for the ARPANET, and the arrangement he negotiated with Robert Kahn let CSNET traffic ride ARPANET infrastructure on a statistical, no-metered-settlements basis. That phrase is worth pausing on. Two organisations agreed to carry each other's traffic without measuring or billing it, because measuring would have cost more than it was worth - and that principle, invented as an accounting convenience between two American agencies, is how networks interconnect worldwide to this day. His CSNET software is also what Karlsruhe used to bring Germany online three years later.
Also known as: farber, csnet, no-settlement
Sources
- Internet Society: an unprecedented 1981 agreement between Farber, acting for CSNET and the NSF, and DARPA's Kahn permitted CSNET traffic to share ARPANET infrastructure on a statistical and no-metered-settlements basis; Adrion, Farber and Landweber established CSNET for the academic and industrial computer science community
- Internet Hall of Fame 2013: Farber, a leader of the development of CSNET, NSFNET, NREN and the Gigabit Testbed