Jonathan Bruce Postel (August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) made many significant contributions to the Internet, particularly in the area of standards. He is principally known for being the Editor of the Request for Comments document series. The Internet Society s Postel Award is named in his honor, as is the Postel Center at Information Sciences Institute.

Perhaps his most famous legacy is from RFC 793, which includes a Robustness Principle which is often quoted as Postel s Law : be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others (often reworded as be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you receive ).

=Career=

Postel earned a B.S. and M.S. in Engineering (in 1966 and 1968 respectively), and a Ph.D. in computer science in 1974, all from UCLA.

While at UCLA, he was involved in early work on the ARPANET; he later moved to the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California, where he spent the rest of his career.

He wrote and edited many important RFCs, including RFCs 0791-0793, which define the basic protocols of the Internet protocol suite, and RFC 2223. He himself wrote or co-authored more than 200 RFCs.

He served on the Internet Architecture Board and its predecessors for many years. He also initiated and ran the number assignment clearinghouse, the IANA, from its inception to his death. He was the first member of the Internet Society, and was on the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society.

=Legacy=

He died of complications following heart surgery in Los Angeles, on October 16, 1998.

His contributions to building the Internet were regarded by his peers as being so great that RFC 2468 was written in his memory. (This is no trivial thing given that between 1969 and February 2002, only 3,240 RFCs were published.)

His last name is pronounced [pə. stɛl] (International Phonetic Alphabet transcription).

=See also=

*History of the Internet

=External links=