> From: Randy Bush <randy(_at_)psg(_dot_)com>
> i am not sure abha or jon would want to be on such a list. remember
> them and honor and carry on their work, don't memorialize them.
I hear you, but I am also mindful of human nature - and people often
(usually?) tend to be startlingly non-conversant with history they didn't
live through. In other words, if we don't do something to inform people of
people like Jon and Abha, people coming in now _won't_ remember them.
I myself am a perfect example of this. When I started, I had for a year (or
more, I don't recall exactly) an office two doors down from J.C.R. Licklider.
Alas, I never got to know him - because I had no idea who he was. (This, to
me, is akin to a young physicist having an office next door to Einstein, but
not knowing who he was. Startling, but it really happened.) The thing is that
nobody ever told me who he was, or what he had done, so as a result I had no
idea I might want to take time out of my focus on doing stuff in order to pay
attention to this person.
So I think some memorialization of significant people who are no longer with
us is warranted. Maybe an 'IETF Hall of Fame', to which each year we can add
significant contributors whom we've lost, or something like that? And the Tao
could point to it.
Noel