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Jon Postel
Sign in to saveAlso known as Jonathan B. Postel, Jonathan Postel, Jonathan Bruce Postel
American computer scientist (1943–1998)
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1943-08-06 ) August 6, 1943, Altadena, California , U.S.
- Died
- October 16, 1998 (1998-10-16) (aged 55), Santa Monica, California , U.S.
- Education
- University of California, Los Angeles ( BS , MS , PhD )
- Known for
- Request for Comment , Internet Assigned Numbers Authority , Postel's Law
- Awards
- Internet Hall of Fame Pioneer, Posthumous Recipient (2012), ACM SIGCOMM Award (1997), ITU Silver Medal (1998), ISOC Jonathan B. Postel Service Award (1999, posthumous)
- Fields
- Computer science
- Doctoral advisor
- Dave Farber
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Bruce
- Family name
- Postel
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Altadena
- Place of death
- Santa Monica
- Occupation
- engineer
- Educated at
- University of California, Los Angeles
- Doctoral advisor
- David J. Farber
- Field of work
- information technology
- Official website
- www.postel.org/jon-postel
- Image
- Jon Postel.jpg
- Residence
- United States
Show 4 more facts
- date of birth
- 1943-08-06
- date of death
- 1998-10-16
- Commons category
- Jon Postel
- maintained by WikiProject
- WikiProject Mathematics
Sources (9)
via Wikidata · CC0
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Jonathan Bruce Postel (/pəˈstɛl/; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to standards. He is known principally for being the editor of the Request for Comment (RFC) document series, for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and for administering the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) until his death.
During his lifetime he was referred to as the "god of the Internet" for his comprehensive influence; Postel himself noted that this "compliment" came with a barb, the suggestion that he should be replaced by a "professional," and responded with typical self-effacing matter-of-factness: "Of course, there isn’t any 'God of the Internet.' The Internet works because a lot of people cooperate to do things together."
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Jon Postel” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.