Jon Postel

1943–1998 · American computer scientist

Topics: distributed systems, open source

• TCP implementations will follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

  — Jon Postel

• Of course, there isn’t any "God of the Internet." The Internet works because a lot of people cooperate to do things together.

  — Jon Postel

• In general, an implementation must be conservative in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior.

  — Jon Postel