FOREWORD

     Netizens: On the Impact and History of Usenet and the Internet is an 
ambitious look at the social aspects of computer networking. It examines 
the present and the turbulent future, and especially it explores the 
technical and social roots of the "Net". A well told history can be 
entertaining, and an accurately told history can provide us valuable 
lessons. Here follow three lessons for inventors and a fourth for social 
engineers. Please test them out when reading the book.

     The first lesson is to keep projects simple at the beginning. 
Projects tend to fail so the more one can squeeze into a year the better 
the chance of stumbling onto a success. Big projects do happen, but there 
is not enough time in life for very many of them, so choose carefully.

     The second lesson is to innovate by taking something old and 
something new and putting them together in a new way. In this book the 
"something new" is invariably the use of a computer network. For example, 
ancient timesharing computer systems had local "mail" services so its 
users could communicate. But the real power of E-mail was when mail could 
be distributed to distant computers and all the networked users could 
communicate. Similarly, Usenet is a distributed version of preexisting 
bulletin-board-like systems. The spectacularly successful World Wide Web 
is just a distributed version of a hypertext document system. It was 
remarkably simple, and seemingly obvious, yet it caught the world by 
complete surprise. Here is another way to state this lesson:

    If a feature is good, then a distributed version of the feature is 
good. And vice-versa.

     The third lesson is to keep on the lookout for "something new", or 
for something improved enough to make a qualitative difference. For 
example, in the future we will have home computers that are always on and 
connected to the Net. That is a qualitative difference that will trigger 
numerous innovations.

     The fourth lesson is that we learn valuable lessons by trying out 
new innovations. Neither the original ARPAnet nor Usenet would have been 
commercially viable. Today there are great forces battling to structure 
and control the information superhighway, and it is invaluable that the 
Internet and Usenet exist as working models. Without them it would be 
quite easy to argue that the information superhighway should have a top-
down hierarchical command and control structure. After all there are 
numerous working models for that.

     It seems inevitable that new innovations will continue to make the 
future so bright that it hurts. And it also seems inevitable that as 
innovations permeate society the rules for them will change. I am 
confident that Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben will be there to chronicle 
the rapidly receding history and the new future, as "Netizens" 
increasingly becomes more than a title for a book.

        Thomas Truscott
        Durham
        December 1995
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June 5, 1996
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The foreword by Tom Truscott is for "Netizens: On the History and 
Impact of Usenet and the Internet." 

*Commercial use is prohibited*

Please send us any comments about this draft. Send comments to
both hauben@columbia.edu and rh120@columbia.edu.