Inventor celebrates 30 years of Ethernet
Published: 21 May 2003 10:22 BST
You started 3Com here in Silicon Valley and then moved to Massachusetts. Now 3Com is following you to Massachusetts. Why?
It had nothing to do with me! Maybe it's part of a trend -- Silicon Valley is passe; and everyone is moving east.
Any thoughts on how things have ended up at 3Com?
"Ended up" -- 3Com is still a billion-dollar company and it's still evolving and I'm proud of the company. I'm still emotionally attached to it, though I haven't worked there since 1990. But I am rooting for them. It has good DNA if I do say so myself, and they're working hard to restore profitability -- and they're not alone in being unprofitable. It will be fun having 3Com headquarters in my back yard.
You were chief executive of IDG's InfoWorld Publishing from 1992 to 1995, and you wrote a regular column for eight years. Do you ever miss being a journalist?
Occasionally I will develop a strong opinion about something, and then I will just yell about it to people.
What's the status of your four patents related to Ethernet?
I share four Ethernet patents -- there were other people involved. The interesting thing is that they've all expired by now. They only last 17 years.
Who's most responsible for the development of Ethernet technologies since your initial description 30 years ago?
That's really hard. In the last 30 years, everyone's gotten involved: Cisco, 3Com, Intel, National Semi, DEC, HP, Compaq, Xerox, Cabletron, Bay Networks, Nortel -- the list goes on. That's an impossible question to answer.
OK, then who's doing the most interesting Ethernet work right now?
I'd have to do some research before I answered that, and if I did answer it I'd get in trouble. It's a pretty widespread thing. That's why Ethernet is so successful, because it's in such widely diverse environments with so many fierce competitors.
I asked you what the name Ethernet meant when you first described the idea, but I didn't ask where you got the word.
In the history of physics, in the 19th century, they needed to explain how light got from the sun to the Earth. So they theorised that there was a medium that filled all of outer space that served as a passive medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves. (Albert) Michelson, (Edward) Morley, Einstein, et al, proved there was no ether. So in 1973, on 22 May, instead of referring to putting packets into Ethernet's cable, I needed a word that was medium-independent, and settled on the word "ether" because the ether would be omnipresent, passive and it would serve as a medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves.
Some of my critics have said it was appropriate that I named Ethernet after a discredited physical argument, which was a weak counterargument. Ethernet used to be a trademark of Xerox, but in the process of standardising it through the IEEE, Xerox gave up the right to the trademark. I've appointed myself as being in charge of deciding what is Ethernet and what is not. If they want to call 802.11 wireless "Ethernet", I'm all for it, especially because it's reminiscent of the Aloha network from which 802.11 is derived.
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